Virgin Star (26 page)

Through gritted teeth she said, "Then tell Seanessy to let me go."

Butcher just shook his head. "He can't, lass, you know he can't."

A palm went to her forehead, and distress changed her face, somehow making her look much younger. Much younger than twenty and one. The amber eyes could not meet the scrutiny of his; she looked at her bare feet as she whispered with feeling, "He has no right. No right."

Butcher felt no sympathy here. "He's taking it, Shalyn," he replied with masculine simplicity. "And only because he owns, among other things, a ripe imagination. We all do. And so we imagine how ye'd like bein' introduced to the crew members flat on yer back, how they would rid themselves of the pieces by feeding what's left of you to the sharks—"

She covered her ears, her lips pressed into a hard line.

Butcher grabbed her arm like the strike of a snake and said slowly, "You're a fool, girl. Get the notion out of your head: these tricks of yours are entertaining, no more. They are no match for a man—"

She said heatedly, "Seanessy's own men—"

"The boys were laughing, girl. Laughing at the brave and foolish show you made. Laughing because, for all of it, you did indeed present them with a dilemma: everyone knows of Sean's unusual interest here, and knowing the unpleasant things he would probably do to any man who laid hands on you, how were they then to restrain your flight?" The dark eyes held hers, desperate to make her see. "And then you know how easily I solved the problem."

She tried to deny it but couldn't. She had been desperate. She hadn't known what Seanessy intended to do with her for two days. She had thought he was acting out of kindness until this morning when she heard one of his men return with the report on a hospital where they cared for people who went mad. He meant to put her in a madhouse. She saw it was time to leave. He was not going to give her passage. She'd have to get it herself.

Mounted on his horse when it happened, Butcher

had simply grabbed her plait That was all. Grabbed the long rope of hair and held it until she relinquished the idea of an exit.

She searched Butcher's worldly face, looking for an argument or rebuttal. There was none past the fear, the terrible fear. She had been so afraid! As his men had stopped and surrounded her, her mind produced the terrorizing idea that these were the phantoms chasing her. She had to escape them; it was all she knew

The amber eyes shimmered with emotion. "I will not go to a madhouse!"

"Look, lass." Butcher sighed. "The one thing I don't know about is when someone's mad and when they're not. 'Tis a line separating the two as thin as a spider's web and just as sticky. If it's any consolation, Sean just sent someone to check it out. This Quaker place. They say it's different. Like going to a chateau on a Swiss mountain lake for the season. Kindness and cleanliness and, well, not really a madhouse at all." He studied her eyes, still full of rage. "Ah, Shalyn, he's desperate, lass. We'll probably be sailin' out by week's end, mayhap less. The boys are preparing the ship now. He does not want to leave you with only Tilly—"

"Then tell him to take me with him!"

The soft spoken plea held urgency, the wealth of her desperation. "You can't sail with us, lass, ye can't."

"I swear I would not be a bother, I swear this!"

He shook his head. That was one thing that was out of the question, absolutely out of the question. Too dangerous by far, even if she wouldn't cause Seanessy a singular problem. He offered a compromise, the only one he could. "Well, let's see now. What if you do stay here with Tilly for the season. Just until there are a few passenger ships sailing the horn. Maybe then …'

By then she would be dead or worse. Yet if it was all she had she would take it. She had no choice. As soon as Seanessy and most of his men sailed, she would walk out of here and never look back—

Or maybe she could sneak onto the Wind Muse ...

"Let me speak to him. How's that?"

She nodded, formulating a plan as she sat. At some point, he would have his trunks packed--mercy, the odds of her stowing away in a trunk and remaining undetected until it was too late for Seanessy to turn the ship back were astronomically piled against her. As likely as a bank's charity.

So distracted by this train of thought, Shalyn never noticed Butcher's quick glance toward the bushes. Seeing that the artist needed more time, he sat down on the grass, staring up at the thin green blades on the branches of the willow tree. A pair of noisy robins returned to a noisy brood fluttering and chirping and blissfully unaware of the stormy silence below.

Butcher watched two maids come out, carrying a picnic basket. Sean was taking no chances now, he saw, and perhaps that was best. The servants quickly, quietly spread the thick quilt beneath the branches of the willow tree.

She observed the two maids smooth the thick sky-blue goosedown quilt, then arrange a large basket and two crystal goblets next to a wine bottle. The very idea of a picnic was so incongruent with her nightmarish reality, she could only stare in a stupor of bewilderment. She drew a shaky uneven breath, the idea penetrating her taut and tired senses slowly: the kindhearted Butcher had arranged a picnic.

The questions rushed at her. How many picnics had she been on? One? Dozens? Did she love them? Loathe them? Would she ever remember a thing as pretty and fine and commonplace as a picnic?

Yet the picnic had not been arranged by Butcher, but rather by Seanessy. Butcher handed her a note attached to the picnic basket. She carefully unfolded the paper to read: "Shalyn mine: Please indulge yourself. For you will need extra padding on a certain unmentionable portion of your anatomy if you ever try another harebrained stunt like that again. Seanessy."

Butcher dismissed the maids with a motion of his head and vowed not to look again at the artist nearby sketching her portrait. As he watched her cheeks turn crimson, her eyes darken with fury, he. heard the unmistakable rumble from her stomach. He had to laugh. "So," he said with a chuckle as he reached to pour the wine and open the basket of food, "how long since you last ate? Or should I even ask?"

She tried to dismiss Seanessy's threat as hot air, and somewhat less successfully forget it as she thought for a moment before releasing a deep sigh. "I can't remember anything these days. And 'tis becoming a big problem."

Butcher opened the basket and withdrew fresh-baked bread, cheeses, pies, a bowl of sliced fruit—all picnic fare. He poured the wine and handed it to her.

"Oh no." She shook her head. "I'm not permit—"

The curiosity of the words startled both of them. A clue. Their gazes locked, hers confused and his questioning. "Do you remember being forbidden wine?"

"No and yes."

"... no sluttish inebriation in my house!"

The voice echoed in her mind. Butcher studied her face and said, "Aw, lass what does that matter? Here, taste and see if you like it."

She took a small sip. The fruity sweetness filled her mouth and a slow smile started. Like heated nectar, the next sip soothed her throat and filled her stomach with its warmth.

"Look behind you, lass."

Dazzling quick reflexes swung her around before the words were finished. For a girl she was quick. Pleasure made her laugh as the clan of monkeys tumbled toward them.

"Meet the bane of Sean's otherwise happy peaceful garden," he said easily, the conversation suddenly as light and airy as the warm fall breeze, perfect for a picnic. He deftly began slicing cheese and bread. The boldest among them leaped back and forth along the edge of the blanket, noisily begging for handouts. "The only thing I've ever met more pesky than these furry fellows are the mosquitoes in the Americas."

Pleasure enhanced her beauty as she delighted in the new company, any last fear dissipated for the moment by a dozen excited, shrieking little monkeys. "May I have a piece of bread to toss?"

He tore off a chunk of bread and handed it to her. She threw it to them. The creatures clamored for the treat like a group of starving waifs. The monkeys were not tame, so he was surprised when one of the little fellows approached on all fours, stopping at her bent knees, moving back, then leaping forward. "You are a greedy fellow!" She handed him a piece. "Will you share with the- others, yes? Oh, but not the ducks?"

The ducks were determined not to miss out. With noisy quacks, they waddled quickly out of the pond to join the burgeoning number of creatures that surrounded her. She laughed as one insistent monkey climbed on his neighbor's back, leaping ahead to snatch the torn bit of bread, "Oh, look, that one has a baby!"

A tiny baby monkey clung to its mother's back.

Butcher's bearded face broke into a huge grin. For a moment he forgot his deception, the unpleasant circumstances as he saw the girl could charm the blackest of hearts. He watched as she tried to reach the mother and child with a piece of bread, laughing as she finally made a good throw. Using her tiny hands, the mother brought it to her mouth and gobbled it up.

Shalyn turned to beg more from Butcher.

"I see we have another problem." Butcher chuckled. He knew only one way to handle this. He leaped to his feet and with a loud roar, sent the creatures into a scurry of flight.

In a pretense of anger, Shalyn chided him as he returned to stretch out on the blanket. "Butcher, you are a terrible bully!"

"Sean's always tellin' me there's only so many mouths a man can feed, and God knows, sweet Tilly makes sure they are daily gorged on food fit for a king."

She watched the monkeys clamor up their tree in the distance as Butcher sliced more cheese and bread, handing them to her as she asked distractedly, "They are so charming—where did Seanessy get them?"

Butcher laughed. "'Tis a long tale, lass."

"Yes? Did he buy them in a shop?"

"Nothing so easy. 'Tis hard to believe, but we once came across the little beasts floating in the sea."

"In the sea? How can that be?"

"Well, about two years ago, the American navy offered Sean a pretty sum for use of two of his ships to join two of their warships to nail a certain Captain Gibbs to the cross. This wretched cap'n was a plunderin' merchantman in Caribbean waters—"

"Seanessy took money like a mercenary?"

"He did and 'twas wrong of him, I know," he said, but with absolutely no contriteness as he handed her a crusty cottage pie carefully folded in the blue napkin and still hot from the oven. "Perhaps Sean should have told them he'd do it for naught more than the pleasure of capturing the man, but as 'twas Captain Gibbs was responsible for two dear friends' deaths, and methinks, as I remember, Sean wanted the money for a widow who had kept his shirt wet for a week with all her sorrow and grief."

"How sad ..."

"Aye, life can be a sad tale indeed, though last year the lady married again, and rather well."

Butcher did not bother to explain Sean's two friends had been captains of merchantmen Gibbs had plundered. Gibbs had set one of the ships to blaze with the captain and crew on board—there were no survivors—while the captain of the other vessel suffered an even worse fate at Gibbs's hands. Indeed Sean would have done it for the pleasure of revenge.

"Anyway, our four ships finally came upon Gibbs's three vessels. Right in the act they were, firin' on three merchantmen. Three merchantmen set ablaze. Ah, lass, 'twas a fierce battle; it always is when the battle is unto death. Our ship did not even catch the worst of it, but Madonna!" He shook his head with a chuckle as he remembered. ''We could hardly maneuver her a compass point to the side. The other three ships were worse off. So, it was up to us to sail through the wreckage of the three merchantmen to find all the survivors. Suddenly the lookout spotted these crates floating here and there. The noise told us what it was—the monkeys were half-mad at the thunder of cannon fire, the scent of fire and smoke, and the want of water."

"So you saved them!"

"We did, but it was a chore. The waters were swimming with sharks by this point, and without being able to maneuver the ship well, if at all, and with no longshore boats left, the only way we could save the bloody things was to do the business by hand. The task was not popular; Sean's boys, like all sailors, do not relish swimming with man-eating predators—'tis a tricky bit of luck to emerge whole from a shark frenzy. The only way Sean could get someone to go in with him was by making it into a wager, giving more than generous odds ..."

The harrowing climax of the story almost lasted until the end of the well-baked strawberry tarts. She managed to swallow the last delicious bite when she realized that he was quite serious, that this had really happened. "He risked his life for crates full of monkeys?"

"Aye, that he did lass, that he did."

She laughed suddenly, a sweet girlish sound, forgetting the whole upside-down world gone mad. For a long moment she laughed, and he watched, enchanted by the sound. When she finally quieted, her amber eyes met his with gratitude and she said, "I can laugh, Butcher."

"A sweet sound it is, lass."

"I like picnics," she added, and in a relieved moment of self-discovery: "I love monkeys, strawberry tarts, and clear skies. And you know, Butcher, I love Seanessy's life, I really do. I love Seanessy's passion and support of art and artists, I love going to the theaters and dining at night, all his adventures and all his fun, traveling whenever he wants. In these last few days I discovered I want to be just like him."

Butcher didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He started to laugh when she continued, "If, when I am finally safe, when I remember everything and, well, when this is all over, I would like to—" She stopped,

abruptly noticing the man hiding in the bushes. "Who's that?" She pointed.

"Who?" Butcher felt his heart leap.

"Butcher, what's that man doing there?"

"Oh, probably just one of the boys strollin' in the garden. Let's see, .who is it?"

Shalyn stared for a long moment. The boys were hardened seamen who drank and played cards and wagered on how many men their captain knocked about on any given evening. The boys were not men who took pleasant afternoon strolls in gardens, much less crouched hidden in a bush, obviously eavesdropping. Butcher himself was one of those ‘boys’, and as kind and generous as he was, he'd not while away an afternoon on a picnic, telling a scared young woman wild stories drawn from Seanessy's past all in the hopes of hearing a laugh.

"Shalyn! Shalyn!"

Too late. Curse the bloody luck.

She found him in the garden room. Joined by Kyler and Hamilton, Seanessy sat at the head of the great long table covered with maps, papers, large red books opened and stacked on top of one another. He held one of the new French pencils in his hand, stopping to drink from a huge goblet of water. He drained it, setting it down with a clink before he returned to his books.

She quietly approached the table.

Kyler and Hamilton noticed her.

"Sean ..." Kyler said, motioning.

Sean looked up. The girl stood at his side. For a long moment, the shimmering emotion in those eyes held him mesmerized. He glanced at the paper she held up. Slowly he set his pencil down and reached out and took it from her.

The silence was palpable as he studied it.

Worth every pound he had paid—the artist was good. No—much better than good. Good did not describe the rendering of the delicate lines that drew the lovely face, and the richly crinkled silk that made her hair, the perfect depiction of the sensuous fullness of her mouth, the small pointed nose, and those eyes. If one did not know her and saw only this picture, one would realize at a glance, hers was neither a frivolous nor an easy life. The artist had somehow captured the intensity of her eyes, the secret tragedy revealed there.

He meant to unravel the secret.

He set down the smooth sheet of paper. "It goes in the London paper tomorrow."

She shook her head; she couldn't speak.

For a long moment, she was mute. He dismissed her by returning to his books, a gesture that said it would be useless to discuss it or plead, that his mind was made up. Until the moment, she fell to her knees before him. He reflexively reached to lift her up but she held his forearms. Desperate to stop him, desperate to make him see, she pleaded, "Seanessy, Seanessy, don't do this to me. I beg you! You don't know what it’s like, Seanessy. This nightmare. I've lost my memory and now I'm afraid. I very much fear that the good doctor is right, that I'm losing my mind. Inside me, I have this panic, the terror that they are looking for me, right now, as I speak, that they won't ever give up until they find me, that I have to get away before they do find me. All I know is that if they do catch me, I will die. And I don't want to, Seanessy!"

The magnitude of those words brought a soft vicious curse, and with her kneeling between his outstretched knees, he grabbed her hands, his gaze locked to her and filled with a sudden fierce anger that frightened her to the depths of her soul.

"Listen, Shalyn mine: no one is going to hurt you. No one. For I am not going to let anyone hurt you, much less kill you. Do hear me?"

She shook her head, the movement sending first one plait, then the other dropping to her waist and making her look so young, too young. "Seanessy, please—"

A gentle hand came to her lips. "No, child. I will not entertain notions otherwise. You see, Shalyn, it occurs to me I have two possibilities here. The first possibility is that this whole thing is a colossal mistake, that there are no dark phantoms chasing you down, bent on some kind of unimaginable horror. Shalyn, it is entirely possible that somewhere out there you have a loving family frantically searching for you. Hear me out: it's possible, nay even likely, that you had simply stepped outside for a stroll or tea or shopping, then you were accosted by I don't know who, an ugly band of nefarious mischief-makers who knocked you on your head, stole your jewels and clothes, and left you for dead. And what if what you are remembering is the terror just before you fell?"

Sending the long rope of her hair over her shoulder, she shook her head, frightened, terrified that she could not make him see, that he would do this to her. "If it is true that I am the lost member of this loving family, then why did I have that jewel clutched in my hand, why didn't these other thieves take it, why did I have your name and address in my hand, and Seanessy, why, dear God, why do I have that hideous mark?"

He searched the lovely upturned face for a long moment before he released her with a sigh, leaned back in the chair, and folded his hands neatly behind his head. With masculine simplicity he said, "Then, Shalyn mine, it leaves me with the second possibility. Someone has abused you. And badly. Someone is indeed searching in hopes of catching you, only to abuse you more. Well, Shalyn," he continued matter-of-factly, "I want to meet this person. Badly. Because, you see, I mean to kill him." This with a grin as if giving her a treat. "For you, Shalyn! So I do not have to see this terror in your lovely eyes ever again."

But Shalyn could not escape the desperate urge to run, run from a frightening past she could not remember. She tried hard to steady her terror at the idea of her picture in the paper, to still her heart long enough to make him see, but she could hardly speak. She shook her head, her eyes large and luminous, washed with tears. "Oh, Seanessy, please..."

Seanessy cursed when he felt every muscle tense with the effort to resist drawing her into his arms. He would not touch her now. No matter what.

"Kyler..." he said.

"I don't know, Sean. No doubt there needs to be a reckoning of the man who put this fear in such a courageous creature. Yet ..." The bald man sighed, looked away, and in that moment he saw the obvious solution. "Why not send the girl off next week with Richards to Ram and Joy in Washington? Ram will keep her safe, Joy will surround her with more kindness and care than a host of pious Quakers. And leave the business of vengeance to me after she departs."

Seanessy considered this plan, the only reasonable course available as he willed himself not to stare into her eyes. "I'd really like to do it myself, you know."

"I'll fire an extra bullet or two in your name."

"Very well," he agreed. Then to Shalyn he promised, "No picture in the paper." Until you're gone.”

Relief felt heady, overwhelming. She reached for his hand and took it, bringing it against her hot cheek. For a moment her gratitude was so powerful, she could not give it a voice.

Then he said gently, "I am going to send you to America, Shalyn. To stay at my brother's house. Joy will see that you are loved and cared for until you are well enough to be introduced into society."

Shalyn and society. He considered the inevitability of some sniveling bumpkin of a fool—an American no less, and no more ridiculous people existed in the world—courting the girl, the kind of gentleman who would embarrass himself before he got his pants off. Why the idea bothered him, he couldn't say. Except that as he imagined this scene between Shalyn and the American bumpkin, he felt a strange surge of ... of rage.

Like jealousy. Him? Jealous? Why, how extraordinarily ordinary! Lord, if he didn't get rid of the girl soon he'd probably end up doing something so perfectly droll as wanting to marry her! Commissioning someone to build a little cottage by the seashore where they would live happily ever after. Dear Lord, save me.

He had to get away from her, a thousand miles away.

"What was I saying?"

Kyler shook his head and chuckled.

"Oh yes," he recalled, still bothered by Shalyn's American bumpkin, whoever he would be. "Anyway, Joy will introduce you to society. What precious little society Washington has, that is. Americans are hopelessly provincial and naive, but so very amusing because of it, good-hearted despite it. I'll send Tilly with you, too. She loves Joy; I daresay she will welcome the trip. You will need a trunk full of clothes and ..."

He started making plans. Shalyn's gratitude still kept any words from leaving her mouth. Her heightened sense of survival kept her from telling him she was not going to America to live with his relations, that she had another plan. For somewhere in her dark past she had learned well how to keep a secret, especially a secret meant to keep her alive.