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As they walked on Drum’s eyes were bright with anticipation as he became infused with Cassandra’s enthusiasm. She was Nat’s daughter all right—tall, graceful and lithe, as slender as a wand and as agile as a faun. There was an arresting quality about her face and an inner vivacious light shone from her eyes, showing a passion for life—fire and ice. Her mind was strong, her manner bold and determined—a legacy of Nat’s.
‘There’s one thing we must speak of. Your father amassed great wealth over the years. The authorities have been unable to lay their hands on it. Only myself and the remaining members of the crew know where it is to be located. What is to be done with it?’
‘As to that, I want none of it. It can sink to the bottom of the sea or be given to the authorities. Do what you will with it, Drum. It was obtained illegally and by force. I did not condone Nat’s way of life—and I have to confess that oft was the time I wished it had been different.’
‘His way of life was set from the day he seized the Dolphin.’
‘That I know. Undoubtedly he was a villain—bold and decisive, and he cut a dashing figure—although his daring deeds made him a charming one, and the scale and brilliance of his villainy elevated him to the rank of one of the most notorious pirates that has ever lived.’
‘Aye,’ Drum agreed with a touch of sadness. ‘It did that.’
Tears clouded Cassandra’s eyes, dampening her lashes. ‘He always made me feel ten feet tall, Drum, and I loved him dearly—pirate or not—to my grief and shame. But he never hurt me so I cannot speak ill of him. When I was thirteen years old and my aunt died and he came to see me, the times I spent with him were the happiest of my life.
‘Until then, my life under Aunt Miriam’s dominance had been a complete misery, and she never let me forget the stigma of my birth. There was never a day went by when she didn’t remind me I was her dead sister’s bastard child. Everything I did I did out of a sense of obligation, but, on getting to know Nat, everything I did was to please him, out of love. Now, come,’ she said, walking on with a new spring to her step, the crowd behind them at Execution Dock beginning to disperse. ‘What about these recruits? I must return to Chelsea to get some things and instruct the servants, and in the mean time you have much to do.’
Drum was of a mind to object, to insist on her remaining at Chelsea, and he would undertake the task of finding men who would be willing to take the risk of releasing the Dolphin from her moorings, men who would know how to keep their mouths shut for a price, but he remained silent, knowing the futility of uttering any protestations.
There was only one man who could tell Cassandra Everson what to do—only one man she had wanted to please, who she would ever listen to. But he was hanging from the end of a rope at Execution Dock. It would take an exceptional man—the like of Nathaniel Wylde—to master her, to tame Nat’s illegitimate, wilful daughter. It would have to be a man who loved her, a man who could not be swayed by the false promise of a coercive, dimpled smile.
Captain Sir Stuart Marston strode away from Execution Dock with a profound feeling of relief that it was done. At last he had seen his foremost enemy suffer the punishment he deserved.
On the restoration of Charles II to the throne of England, Nathaniel Wylde had ignored a Royal pardon to surrender himself and continued taking and plundering ships bound for the West Indies. Initially, having no love of Cromwell’s protectorate in England, he had preyed only on Parliamentary ships, but over the years, as his enthusiasm for piracy flourished and his gains became richer, in his greed and lust for more it had come to matter little what flag a ship sailed under if her cargo was worth the taking.
It was almost a year ago that Stuart’s elder brother had been on one of the ships bound for Jamaica to visit his uncle who owned a plantation there, when his vessel had come under attack from pirates. In a heavy mist the heavily laden merchant vessel, having sailed wide of the convoy in which it was travelling, had stood little chance of outrunning or outgunning the two pirate ships—fast single-masted sloops with forty guns between them.
Only a handful of those on board had survived to tell the tale, and Stuart had learned that the captain of the vessel that had led the attack was Nathaniel Wylde, and that after removing the cargo he and his cohorts had left the stricken ship and nearly all those on board to sink to the bottom of the sea. News of this sinking had shocked the Admiralty and public alike in England. Driven by a need to avenge his brother, Stuart had approached the Admiralty and been granted his wish.
He was issued with a privateering mission allowing him to seek out Captain Nathaniel Wylde with his ship, the Sea Hawk, to arrest and bring him back to London to stand trial for his crimes—an unusual concession, for such licence was usually issued to a Royal Naval vessel, but the ships of the Royal Navy were needed in the long-running fight with the Dutch.
After drawing Captain Wylde out of his lair in the Gulf of Mexico, Stuart had hounded him across the Atlantic to the coast of West Africa, which had fewer hiding places than the islands of the Caribbean.
Wylde had put up a fierce fight, but eventually Stuart and the seamen under his command had managed to capture the Dolphin, her captain and half her crew. Along with his ship, Nathaniel Wylde had been brought to England in chains and hanged.
In possession of a feeling of deep satisfaction that he had avenged himself on Captain Wylde for the death of his brother, Stuart proceeded towards the Pool of London where the Sea Hawk, chartered to a private English mercantile company, was moored.
He had only one more mission to the West Indies to carry out for the Company before he was to retire from the sea and settle down to a life of ease at Charnwood in Kent, home to his family for generations, where he would satisfy his mother’s desire that he find himself a wife and provide her with grandchildren and an heir.
Absently his thoughts turned to the tall, slender young woman he had observed from a distance watching the execution of Nathaniel Wylde. There had been an intense look of concentration in her eyes, which had turned to open curiosity when they had met his. Each had briefly assessed the other with an unwavering stare, and the woman’s steady gaze had taken on an iron nerve. It was the measure of a woman confident of her own worth.
Her eyes had been the only feature exposed, but he recalled the long strand of pale gold hair escaping the confines of her hood. It had drawn his gaze like a moth to a flame, for it was the only bright feature to lighten the dreariness of the day until Nathaniel Wylde had appeared, and his own mane of hair had shone to equal that of the woman’s.
It was then the truth burst on him—that the young woman he had seen could in all probability have been Wylde’s daughter. At first his brain refused to accept it and he smiled at his foolish, fanciful thoughts, for not by any stretch of the imagination could he visualise a man’s daughter coming to watch her father hang. However, recollecting tales told by mariners that Nathaniel Wylde had a daughter of spirit and great beauty, and that she lived with relatives somewhere in London, perhaps he was not mistaken in his suspicion after all—and with Wylde’s blood in her, she would feel neither distress nor out of place at a hanging.
The more he thought about it—having observed her as Wylde had mounted the gallows, he had seen her knuckles showing white from the force with which she had gripped the hood of her cloak across her face, and recollected how both she and her companion had gone to great lengths to keep their features concealed as they remained hovering on the edge of the crowd—the more possible, the more probable it became that the woman he had seen was indeed the pirate’s daughter.
He could have turned back and denounced her companion, who was undoubtedly one of Wylde’s associates, but for some reason unknown to him he hired a hackney to take him to his ship, eager to put the unpleasant episode behind him and slake his thirst and eat his dinner in the warm comfort of his cabin, reluctant to condemn another man to the same gruesome fate as Nathaniel Wylde.
But the following morning he had grave misgivings and was compelled to examine his failure to turn back and denounce the man when the bosun informed him that, unobserved, the Dolphin had slipped quietly from her moorings in the dark of the night and was last seen heading down river towards the sea—a woman, with pale blonde hair flowing down the length of her back and dressed in breeches, her feet planted firmly apart, standing in the prow of the ship.
When the tide had receded it was also revealed that Nathaniel Wylde’s body had been cut free of the hangman’s noose at Execution Dock.
Chapter Two
A fter encountering severe storms off the mainland of South America, which severely damaged the Dolphin’s hull and forced her to put in at the first landfall, which happened to be the island of Trinidad, it was with sadness and reluctance that Cassandra, eager to reach Barbados and her cousin Sir John Everson, parted company with the Dolphin.
The burial they had given her father at sea had been a particularly poignant moment for her. She had watched through a mist of tears as the corpse of the man who had been tied to her by blood had slipped beneath the grey waters. ‘Goodbye, Father,’ she had whispered, and in the soulful wind blowing over the sea came the tempting strains of an answering farewell, strains that filled her heart, a sound heard by her alone.
And now Cassandra was glad to be moving on, to put the tragic memories of those terrible last days in London behind her. She acquired a passage on a large English merchant vessel, the Spirit of Enterprise, bound for Barbados and Antigua. During the same storms that had battered the Dolphin, the merchantman, which had been travelling in an organised convoy, since lone vessels were in danger of being attacked and plundered by pirates, had been blown severely off course, and the ship’s commander, Captain Tillotson, had put in at Trinidad to take on fresh water.
Uneasy at Cassandra being the only woman on board the Dolphin, Drum had insisted that his daughter, eighteen-year-old Rosa, accompany her. She was a quiet, comely girl, with dark features like her Portuguese mother. Drum had taken her on board when they had made a lengthy stop at Praia, his home in the Cape Verde Islands.
In desperate need of provisions, and to carry out urgent repairs to the badly leaking Dolphin, Drum was to go on to one of the neighbouring islands—an island that was a favourite haunt for pirates. Contrary to his misgivings when he had taken Cassandra on board, the sailors had taken to her like seals to the ocean, and the entire crew would mourn her departure.
Drum bore a deep and abiding love for his daughter; when the moment came to say farewell, he stood still for a moment while Rosa rested her head against him, then he patted her and said gruffly, ‘Be a good girl, Rosa, and do as Cassandra tells you.’ Promising dutifully that she would, lifting her arms she put them round her father’s neck and kissed his scarred cheek. He held her tightly for a moment and then stepped back and turned to Cassandra.
‘Try not to worry about Rosa, Drum,’ Cassandra said, aware of his concern and touched at how much feeling this hard-bitten pirate possessed for his daughter. ‘Captain Tillotson is to give us his protection until we reach my cousin. I promise to take good care of her, and ensure her safe passage back to Cape Verde. Where will you go, when the Dolphin is repaired?’
‘Who knows?’ he said with a roguish, Irish grin. ‘The ship will sail, winged by her oars, and go wherever the wind will take us.’
If Captain Tillotson thought it strange for an English woman to be travelling with just one female companion so far from home, he was too much of a gentleman to show it. However, the occupants of the Dolphin stirred his curiosity and he suspected they were sea rovers, but the captain, though fearsome to look at with his scarred face, seemed a reasonable enough individual and was clearly concerned that the young lady and her companion be delivered safely to her cousin on Barbados.
It was with the dawn on a morning in April, almost five months after leaving England, that Cassandra glimpsed the coral island of Barbados, its encircling reefs giving her a degree of security and immunity. It was a large island, hanging like a teardrop one hundred miles east of the Caribbean chain. Well situated in terms of the north-easterly trade winds and ocean currents that enabled the island to receive shipping from Europe, it rose on the horizon wreathed in a golden mist, like a mirage, bewitching, peaceful and powerfully hypnotic, and, the closer they sailed, the air blowing from inland was heavy with a thousand scents.
The ship anchored in the commodious bay at Bridgetown. The glittering waters were dotted with all manner of craft, from fishing ketches and lighters to huge merchantmen that docked at Barbados frequently. Barbados was successful in its manufacture of sugar, and Bridgetown, bustling to an ageless quick tempo, was the island’s trading centre.
The noise and colour assailed Cassandra’s senses, and the hot Caribbean sun gilded the town and warehouses that lined the waterfront in a silver glow. Everywhere disorder reigned. A never-ceasing army of bare-chested black slaves worked laboriously, driving wagons and manning the oars of the lighters—sturdy vessels utilised to transport cargo to and from the ships anchored in the bay. They were built to carry twenty to thirty tons—and in many cases passengers and cargo would be lucky to escape a drenching.
The figures on the beach were a blur in the trembling heat haze as Cassandra was rowed in a precariously laden lighter from the ship. With no room in the boat for another person or piece of baggage, Rosa had been left with no alternative but to take the boat behind. When they were halfway to the shore, the boat carrying Cassandra began to list precariously to one side as it was tossed about on the choppy water, causing the baggage to shift. Everyone in the boat realised it was about to capsize.
Overseeing the unloading of his ship, the Sea Hawk, Stuart Marston stood on the shore, momentarily distracted from watching his cargo of much-wanted metals and broadcloth being taken to the warehouses, when his attention was caught by a female occupant in one of the boats advancing towards the shore. A wide-brimmed hat with a sweeping white plume sat on top of her silvery blonde hair, and she was lavishly attired in garments that would have graced the Court of King Charles in England, yet which looked incongruously out of place on this tropical island.
Her beauty was apparent and he could not tear his eyes away from her. She seemed to exist in a shimmering pool of silver light radiating all about her. His dark gaze swept over her features appreciatively, for like all hot-blooded men he was easily moved by the beauty of a woman. Observing that the boat she was in was about to cast her into the sea, immediately he strode into the surf and began wading through the shallow water towards it.
Taken completely by surprise as two tanned hands reached out and hauled her from the boat just as it keeled over, spilling occupants and baggage into the water and causing a general turmoil, Cassandra gasped and began struggling against the person who had taken such liberty, but it was like trying to prise herself out of a steel trap.
‘Be still,’ commanded the masculine voice of her captor, his hard arms tightening about her waist and beneath her knees, ‘or you’ll have us both in the water.’
Startled by the harsh, deep resonance of his tone, Cassandra did as he ordered, torn between amusement and a certain amount of consternation, but, on seeing her captor’s handsome features and encountering an amused dark stare, she relaxed and, reaching up, placed her arms about his neck.
Smiling up at him, she let her eyes dwell on the tiny beads of perspiration, which glistened like delicate pearl drops on his brown flesh. Nothing had prepared her for the thrill of excitement that travelled deliciously throughout her body at finding herself pressed against the broad chest of such a powerfully attractive man.
‘I realise that you must have feared for my safety when you saw the boat list, and I am grateful to you for coming so swiftly to my rescue, sir,’ she murmured, feeling the hardness of his body and the tightening of his sinewy arms supporting her, and conscious of the faint scent of sandalwood, which he favoured. ‘It was extremely gallant of you. However, I can swim and the sea in this part is not nearly deep enough for a person to drown.’
‘Then I am glad I was ignorant of that fact since it would have denied me the pleasure of carrying you to the beach. Unless, of course, you would like me to put you down into the water—which I do not recommend,’ he said, the quirk in his lips deepening into an amused, one-sided grin, and his eyes sparkling with devilment, ‘for it is not unknown for sharks to swim in the shallows in the hope of obtaining a tasty meal.’
‘Then it would appear I have no option but to remain where I am. I have no mind to be eaten by the sharks, so I am perfectly happy for you to carry me all the way to the shore,’ Cassandra replied softly, falling under the influence of the stranger’s slow and easy smile.
She was content to let her eyes linger on the deep cleft in his chin, which emphasised the strength of his jaw. His mouth was wide, his lips firm, and she conceived that it denoted humour as well as hardness. The only imperfection was a small scar, which curved down one cheek, yet even that could not mar his handsome face. His eyes were impressive, fierce and black, their smouldering depths seductive and enticing, and totally alive.
Cassandra judged him to be in his late twenties or early thirties. There was a certain arrogance and aggressive quality to his features, and he was self-assured and attractive enough to turn any woman’s head. His hair was thick and unruly and shining black, and a heavy wave fell with careless unrestraint over his brow. His skin shone with a bronzed, smooth, healthy glow and he looked magnificently virile and masculine.
Feeling himself undergoing her close scrutiny Stuart looked down at her. Their eyes met, his bolder and more penetrating than any man’s who had looked at her before. They openly and unabashedly displayed his approval as his gaze ranged over her face. The slow grin that followed and the gleam in his dark eyes brought a stinging heat creeping over Cassandra’s skin and her heart turned over beneath the warmth, the power of it. Realising she was staring at him with a brazenness that was immodest, she lowered her eyes. Her sudden discomfiture broadened his smile, displaying two even rows of white teeth.
‘Do I unsettle you?’ he enquired quietly.
‘No. Not in the least.’ That was not quite true, for he did unsettle her. Having no experience of men like this, she was not at all sure how to handle the incident.
‘If so, I beg your pardon. You are an extremely beautiful young woman—indeed, it would be ungracious of me to say otherwise—and I fear I have been on board ship too long. My manners appear to have deserted me,’ Stuart confessed, looking down into her eyes raised to his, bright and vivid blue—periwinkle blue, the bluest eyes he had ever seen, the pupils as black as jet. From that moment he was intrigued.
Held in his arms, she was as light as swan’s-down and he could feel every slender curve of her body, hinting at hidden delights. The fresh delicate scent of jasmine rose from her skin that was burned golden brown, which intrigued him more, since all the young ladies of his acquaintance deemed it shocking to expose one’s flesh to the sun.
But Stuart suspected this was no ordinary young woman. He sensed in her an adventuresome spirit, which had no room for convention or etiquette. There was nothing demure about her, as was the case with the young ladies who flitted in and out of his mother’s circle back in England, whose eyes would be ingeniously cast down, even among those they knew, which was proper. This young lady showed none of the restraint instilled into young girls of good family. She stared directly into his eyes. Her own glowed with an inner light and hinted of the woman hidden beneath the soft innocence of her face.
Around the slender column of her throat she wore a diamond-studded velvet band that matched her oyster silk gown. Despite the searing heat of the day and the heavy clothes she wore, she looked cool and completely at ease, not in the least embarrassed or discomfited at being carried in the arms of a half-dressed sea captain in full view of sailors and townspeople, or concerned by the capsizing of the boat, which its occupants were trying frantically to correct.
‘So—you are English,’ he said at length, his curiosity matching his growing ardour.
‘Does that surprise you?’
‘Considering we are on the other side of the Atlantic in the West Indies, then I have to say it does, Mistress…?’
‘Everson.’
‘I am most pleased to meet you, Mistress Everson.’
‘I am here to visit my cousin, Sir John Everson.’
‘Is he a planter on the island?’
‘No. He is a director and shareholder of a mercantile company based in London—the Wyndham Company. Perhaps you know of it.’
‘There are few in the trade who don’t. Its commercial success has attracted understandable envy and admiration from its rivals. The Company has expressed an interest in expanding eastwards—to the Spice Islands and India, I believe.’
‘Maybe so. I couldn’t say. John doesn’t often discuss Company business with me. For myself, I had a mind to pay him a visit—to see something of the West Indies and widen my horizons. Should I find Barbados as pleasant as it’s been portrayed, then I shall be in no hurry to leave,’ Cassandra told him lightly, as if she were speaking of nothing more interesting than visiting the county next to the one in which she lived in England, instead of an island on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
‘And you live in London?’
‘More or less. I live in the village of Chelsea.’
‘Then being from Chelsea, you’ll find this climate and its people very different.’
Bathed in a tropical heat, Cassandra gazed along the shimmering line of sand. It was a vibrant and colourful scene, an unfamiliar one, with people who were strangers, not only white but black, too. These black people were slaves, of a different culture, who spoke an unintelligible language, brought over from Africa to work the labour-intensive sugar plantations.
Slavery might have economic advantages but it involved cruelty. It was a system that restricted the human rights of individuals owned by the white planters. John had explained that without slaves the plantations could not exist, which was the sad reality of the island’s success. It was a system Cassandra found abhorrent, and she was glad the Wyndham Company’s operations did not extend to the triangular route.
The triangular route began in Europe with ships loaded with trade goods bound for Africa. These goods were bartered or sold for slaves. The second leg of the journey—known as the Middle Passage—was across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, where the slaves were offloaded and sold at auctions or privately. Laden with tropical produce, the ships then returned to Europe on the third leg of their journey.
Cassandra knew that in the weeks ahead she would see slavery in all its ugliness, but today, beneath a blue sky and the white-capped sea pulsating with the forces of wind and gravity all around her, the island seemed to hold a special allure. Already she could feel herself falling under its spell. She breathed in the air of the future in the making, the strange, unfamiliar scents borne on the breeze that blew from inland, which in her ignorance of a place she had only a rudimentary awareness of she could not put a name to, but which, altogether, became the essence of the Caribbean. It was exciting and made her feel vibrantly alive and set her blood racing.