swept around him and out the door, marching across the deck and to the plank joining the two vessels. The pirate crew paid her little heed while they rushed to disengage the grappling hooks and ready the ship. Overhead, the large sail filled with wind and pulled the rigging taut. Over the noise, she caught the faint clink of the coins inside the case. She should open it and throw the money overboard, but to do so would mean revealing something of their conversation and the fact that she’d accepted money from a pirate.
I did it for Dinah. The money was significantly more than she presently possessed and it would help them start over in Virginia.
She hurried to the balustrade, ready to cross to the Winter Gale. No activity marred its deck where the sails and rigging lay torn and shattered. They needed the Royal Navy ship to reach them and help the sailors repair the mainmast before they could continue.
Dr Abney stood in front of the mess, anxiously waiting for her, his full cheeks sagging with relief when he saw her approach the rails. He’d warned her about going willingly to Richard, but she hadn’t listened. She wished she had, then Richard would have remained a treasured part of her past instead of another person who’d betrayed her.
In a few long strides Richard was beside her, his mask fixed over his face, his tricorn settled low over his forehead to further shade his eyes. They stopped at the plank and he took the box from her and tossed it across the gap to Dr Abney. Cassandra held her breath, hoping the lock didn’t break open and scatter the money about the deck. Dr Abney caught the box without reaction, unable to hear or feel the weight of the coins shifting inside over the noise of the sea and the pirates.
Cassandra gathered up the sides of her skirt, ready to rush across when Richard held out his hand to help her. She peered up at him, loss consuming her as it had when she’d watched him climb the gangplank to the Maiden’s Veil in Yorktown. He’d left her with promises that he’d return to her and she’d lived off their hope for so long, until there hadn’t been any more.
‘If things had been different, would you have come home to me? Would we have been happy together?’ she asked, desperate for something in her life to have been real and good.
He closed his fingers over his palm, then opened them again, still holding it out to her, silently urging her to accept it and his help. ‘Yes.’
The wind whipped at her, making her eyes water as much as her desire to weep. She despised what he’d become, but it pained her to let him go again. It was like learning of his death for a second time, except he wasn’t dead, but achingly beyond her reach. Beneath the black silk, in the touch of yellow about his irises, there lingered something of the man who’d almost become her husband, the one she’d been willing to wait for until he’d lied about his death.
I don’t believe in that man any more.
She brushed past him, stepped up on the plank and rushed across. On the other side, Dr Abney took her hand and helped her down, staying close beside her as she wiped the moisture from the corners of her eyes.
‘My lady, are you all right?’ Concern made the lines of his face deepen. ‘He didn’t take liberties with you, did he?’
‘No. He was a perfect gentleman.’ Until he’d changed into a rogue and made it clear he wanted nothing more from her than her word.
She took the pistol box from Dr Abney and made for the Captain’s cabin and Dinah. Behind her, Richard called out orders to his crew, his voice reverberating across the water even as the growing distance between the ships swallowed it. The sound of it called to her, but she didn’t look back. She refused to mourn him a second time.
* * *
Richard marched to the opposite side of the ship, unwilling to watch the Winter Gale, and yet another thing torn from him, disappear over the horizon. He gripped the rigging and leaned out over the rail to take in the salty air. Even in the stiff breeze the echoes of Cassandra’s rosewater-scented skin continued to torture him.
‘Captain?’ Mr Rush approached him. ‘We’ve caught a good wind and should outrun the Navy vessel. Mr O’Malley wants to know what course to plot.’
Richard stared out at the whitecaps breaking over the tops of the wind-driven chop, ignoring the weight of the pistol in his coat pocket. The news of Walter’s death and Cas’s appearance had hit him broadside like a wave, but he wouldn’t let it capsize him, nor would he pine for her like some abandoned dog. Let her return to Virginia cursing him. It made no difference as long as she helped him. He couldn’t be certain she would until the moment came to send her the pistol. Until then, like the rest of his past, his time with her was over. With the evidence in jeopardy, he must find another way to ruin Vincent. He’d promised his crew they’d clear their names and have a future free from the threat of the gallows. It was a promise he would damn well keep. ‘Set a course for Nassau, Mr Rush. Let’s find out if those rumours of Vincent trading with pirates are true.’
One month later
‘Milady, scrubbing floors is no task for a titled lady!’ Mrs Sween, the Belle View housekeeper, gasped from the dining-room door. She’d come up from the cellar and the underground passage leading to the kitchen building in the garden. The earthy scent of the lavender she’d hung in the cellar clung to her and it filled the dining room where Cassandra knelt on the floor with a bucket of warm water and a scrub brush. Cassandra’s arms burned from her effort to make the old floorboards shine again. Over the years, Uncle Walter had given little thought to the house, focusing instead on rents and the annual crops, neither of which had ever brought in enough money, as Giles had complained every quarter when her meagre payments had arrived.
‘I’m afraid I’m not much of a titled lady.’ There were few young ladies who’d left Virginia as an impoverished orphan and returned a dowager baroness. At one time the achievement had seemed like the pinnacle of success, a finger in the eye of everyone in society who’d abandoned her after her parents died and her family’s fortune was lost. It hadn’t been the triumph she’d hoped for. ‘Mother would’ve been ashamed at the way I used to sit idle at Greyson Manor. Giles never let me do more than decide on the dinners.’ Even if she’d been able to work beside him, she doubted he could have taught her much. He’d driven the estate deeper into debt than when he’d inherited it, caring more for his mistress than the careful management of his income. ‘Mother always insisted I take a hand in the affairs of Belle View. I intend to teach Dinah to do the same thing.’
Dinah played next to her with a small brush, a wide smile on her cherubic face, making more of a mess than a difference in the condition of the floors. Cassandra’s efforts hadn’t achieved much either. The scrubbed boards stood out against the surrounding dull ones, many of which were in need of repair. The carpenter was too busy fixing the barn to see to something as trivial as the unused dining room.
She glanced about the room and sighed at the faded and dusty furnishings, the best pieces having been sold off years ago to pay debts. What was left would have made her mother cry to see it. It almost made Cassandra weep, too, when she recalled the many family dinners she’d enjoyed here. Some day, Dinah would enjoy them, too.
If I can continue to make something of Belle View and to cultivate Williamsburg society. She thought of the money from Richard hidden upstairs and how much of it she’d already spent to purchase seed stock, hire labourers and pay for the carpenter’s work on the barn. She shouldn’t spend it, but hoarding it away didn’t free it from the taint of piracy or do anyone any good—not her, not Dinah, not the workers who relied on Belle View for their living. Not spending it would also make maintaining the illusion of wealth more difficult, especially if she had to go begging for loans to keep the plantation from sinking into debt.
‘Lady Shepherd, I don’t mean to trouble you...’ Mrs Sween’s brogue muddied by a Virginia twang interrupted Cassandra’s thoughts ‘...but I heard one of the field hands say Mr Marston quit this