The Scot Corsair Page 18

  Partly because she could hardly say as much when he had made her no offer, but partly because he was staring at her with an expression that could fairly be described as thunderous.

  "Lady Elspeth," he said, in a low, steady voice. "I thought I explained to you before why my true identity can never be known."

  "Oh, but why? Nobody at home would ever know! That you'd been a pirate, I mean."

  "Two people know who I really am, or was once. One is Stirling, who would never betray me. The other, God help me, is your ladyship. Do not make me regret taking you into my confidence."

  "So you really will not do it? You will ask my brother for a ransom and risk being arrested, when you could claim your birthright instead? Then you will sail away and leave me—"

  The table shook as he slammed down his fork onto the pewter platter. "By God! I'm an old fool, to let fine eyes and golden hair hold sway over my better judgement. Why did I expose my secret to a spoiled hare-brained child?"

  "Oh!" Elspeth banged her own knife onto the table and clattered to her feet, tears swimming and blurring her vision.

  She did not look back at him. She made no parting shot, because she did not want her voice to break and betray her. Instead, gathering as much of her dignity around her as she could—rags, to barely hide her emotions—she stumbled back to her cabin alone, locked herself in with trembling hands, and gave way to the relief of a storm of solitary tears.

  It was all over.

  A little part of Elspeth hoped that the Captain would come to the locked door of her cabin in a little while, and beg forgiveness for insulting her. Another, wilder part of her imagined that he might bang on the door and demand admission, then turn her over his knee and lift her skirts and apply his hand long and hard to her bare behind to punish her for her petulance and disrespect in walking out on him.

  The truth was, she would have preferred either to what in fact happened, which was that he left her entirely alone to cry and pine until the cabin was deep in gloom. When she peered out of the window she could see, still, a glow on the horizon where the sun had not quite left the world, and she knew from that for sure that they were nearly home. She had been gone so long now that it was the time of year when night barely fell over Scotland.

  She lit a candle and looked at her watch. Although it had broken on the voyage, she had continued to wind it every day—it had been almost the last present her mother had ever given her, for her tenth birthday, and she had always kept it with her and cared for it fastidiously—and now, thank heavens, it seemed to have righted itself. It told her that it was ten minutes to midnight, which the sky appeared to confirm.

  If the Captain would not help himself, if he was determined to persist in his course of self-destruction, then she would simply have to do the right thing on his behalf. Elspeth scrambled in the bottom of her trunk and found her writing-case, which had lain there idle and untouched since the note to Henrietta that she had written in Freetown. That seemed a lifetime ago. The ink had crusted and congealed in its pot, but she got it flowing again with a few drops of water from her night-jug, and with little pause for thought she filled a whole sheet and crossed half.

  Sir Duncan

  You will be very surprised, sir, to receive this letter from me, I know; but pray do not be shocked also. I have a very particular and extraordinary reason for this breach of propriety, and beg your indulgence, a favour that I know your kind and generous nature will readily grant.

  Whatever it says on the printed letter-head about this coming from Dunwoodie House, I am in fact at sea, although at this moment rapidly approaching home once more. We expect to land at Aberdeen within the next few days. You may not have heard that not long after I had the pleasure of meeting you in Edinburgh, I undertook a voyage to the West Indies, to visit cousins there. To make a long story short, the merchant vessel on which I was travelling was attacked by pirates as we neared our destination, and I and my maid were the only souls on that ship to escape with our lives.

  I cannot imagine what your sensations will be when I tell you that our lives were saved by none other than your elder brother, whom I should properly call Sir Roderick, although he does not use that title. Your brother has told me that he believes himself to have been declared lost at sea and officially dead many years ago, but I have to tell you that he most certainly is alive. He risked his life in the most gallant fashion imaginable to rescue me and my maid from the clutches of those buccaneers, and has taken it upon himself to commandeer the merchant vessel, hire a crew and sail us back home to safety.

  My gallant preserver is as modest as he is brave, and does not want his heroic deeds to become known to the world. I however cannot bear to think that you should continue to believe your brother dead, when he is no such thing, and when he is moreover the most valiant and worthy of men. Since he will be returning to Scotland for the first time in twenty years or more, I cannot but hope that if this reaches you in time, you will find some means of meeting with him. We will be making port at Aberdeen in a merchant vessel called the Heron, I expect some time around the tenth of June.

  I know this will all come as a shock to you, sir, but I hope it is not an unpleasant one. As you are a gentleman, I beg you, please do not mention my name whatever may be the outcome. Your brother would not approve of my writing to you, but my conscience and my heart would not allow me to do otherwise.

  I remain, sir, with all possible good wishes for your future happiness, your servant

  Elspeth Dunwoodie

  As she wrote the words, she believed them all. Her heart was beating fast as she read them over, and even the realisation that she had somehow written Birnie back into her version of events did not trouble her. Well, so be it. It seemed too odd, too fantastical—too scandalous—to imply that she had in fact been quite alone on a voyage across the Atlantic with the Captain and a rabble of Venezuelan sailors. If Sir Duncan met with his brother after twenty years, the last thing he would be thinking about was whether she had her maid with her or not.

  She folded and sealed the letter, and hesitated over how to direct it. Sir Duncan's seat was Lochlannan Castle in Inverness-shire, but she had the feeling that he was not often in residence there. She had only ever met him in Edinburgh, where she believed he lodged in Queen Street. At length she wrote 'Sir Duncan Buccleuch, Queen Street, Edinburgh', and tucked it under her pillow.

  Chapter Fifteen

  She awoke to bright sunlight in her eyes and shouts that set her heart racing before her feet touched the floor of the cabin. She was on the point of running from the cabin when she realised that she was still in her nightgown, and she knelt up on the bunk to peer out of the porthole instead.

  Her breath was knocked out of her throat. She was looking, not at a distant smudge on the horizon, but at rugged cliffs and green grassy slopes so close that she felt she might have reached out her hand and touched the pebbles on the beach. She could see seagulls circling above their nests, hear their sharp, bleating calls. Scotland—surely it was Scotland, the very rocks seemed as familiar as her own hand—had appeared all at once in the night, like a land in a fairytale. No matter how ambivalent her feelings had been about going home, now that she saw her own shores a powerful delight swelled in her breast.

  The men were shouting in their excitable foreign way about sighting land, she thought. Nothing more, no need for alarm.

  And then she caught sight of the ship, no very great distance along the shore, sailing towards them with the full colours of the British navy fluttering from every mast.

  She stared at the familiar flags, shock prickling over her skin, unexpected terror catching at her breath. Then, she heard a step outside her door and the solid, unmistakable clunk of the lock being turned from the other side.

  Elspeth dashed at the door and threw herself against it. "Captain!"

  There was a silence. She thought for a moment that he must have gone. Then, in a strange tone, he said, "You must stay belowdecks, Elspeth."

&n
bsp; "But that ship—that ship—is it the Navy?"

  "Yes. I steered this course in the hope of avoiding coastal patrols. But what do I know? I have not been near these waters in half a lifetime."

  "But they will not—they will let us pass on—won't they?"

  "We have no papers. If you remember, I was forced to flee Ponta Delgada before I could obtain any."

  "Let me out!" She banged her hand against the unyielding wood.

  "Not a chance, your ladyship. And keep you as quiet as a mouse, or you will kill us all for sure."

  "No! Captain! Wait!"

  But his heels clicked sharply on the deck as he strode away.

  Elspeth raised her fists to hammer on the door and scream more loudly, but as she did so, something within stopped her.

  She turned instead, and rested her back against the door, and deliberately made her breathing slow down until she was quite in command of herself. This was no game, this was no silly matter of pride or petulance or wounded feelings. This was, quite literally, a matter of life and death. And she was the only person on board who could save the Captain and Stirling, and quite possibly the foreign crewmen too. Whether he thought he had locked her in here for her own safety or whether he was making a last-ditch attempt to hold onto his valuable hostage, she had to get out.

  Moving rapidly but calmly, she dressed herself in one of her finer morning gowns and took particular care to pin up her hair as neatly as she could without assistance. Any deficiencies in the arrangement, she concealed under her smartest bonnet. Then she scrambled about for anything that could possibly serve as a tool.

  She needed a poker. There was no fireplace in the cabin, of course. She needed a metal rule, but she had seen no such thing since her days in the schoolroom at Dunwoodie. The thought inspired her to look in her writing-case nonetheless, and there she found the ivory-handled letter opener in the shape of a small dagger that her brother John had brought her back from Italy. Its blade was sturdy and lethal-looking, and as Elspeth turned it over in her hands—looking at it properly for the first time—she realised that she could not be entirely sure that it was not in fact a real dagger.

  She ran the blade down through the narrow gap between the door and its frame, finding where the metal bar of the lock was, and simply levered against it with all her might. For a few moments she was afraid that the knife might snap against the unyielding jamb, but the door was not especially sturdy. The wood creaked, then splintered. Elspeth got her fingers into the gap and prised open one panel, making enough room for her to work her hand through and fumble at the lock on the other side of the door. To her immense relief, her fingers encountered the key still in place. She had a moment's terror that she would knock it from the lock, but with an effort she managed to turn it and the door sprang open inwards.

  Only then did Elspeth realise that her hand was hurting, and she looked down to see that she had managed to scratch it on the splintered wood. She grabbed a handkerchief to wrap around it and hide the bleeding. Then she tipped her chin up, mustered the accumulated dignity of five centuries of Dunwoodies, and marched out onto the open deck.

  The scene on deck was ominous. Elspeth saw at once that she had escaped her cabin not a moment too soon. The British naval ship was pulled right alongside the Heron, and two boarding planks had been placed between the vessels. On the deck of the naval ship, which was much larger than the Heron, were assembled disciplined-looking ranks of sailors in their pristine blue uniforms, all balancing muskets across their shoulders. On their own deck stood the Captain, in his motley maroon frockcoat, with Stirling in roughspun trousers and mismatched jacket by his side. The Venezuelan sailors lounged about in their none-too-clean assortment of garments, too flimsy and too bright for the northern climate.

  The only item of sartorial dignity on their vessel was the smart naval hat perched on top of the Captain's curls, and Elspeth felt that it was ineffectual in the face of the splendidly attired officer striding across the plank towards him. Gleaming with gold-laced buttons, resplendent in a dazzling white waistcoat, with monogrammed epaulettes on each shoulder, this was the real thing; no self-appointed pirate king, no commander of a merchant vessel, but a genuine Captain in the King's Navy. Behind him came two first lieutenants, muskets at the ready.

  "Captain James Hubbard, HMS Perseus," snapped the shining Captain, in an icy English voice. He had a pale, scrubbed face, freckled rather than tanned, and looked rather too young to have been granted advancement to his rank. "Do you speak English, man?"

  Her own Captain said something in the Spanish-sounding language which Elspeth now knew was Portuguese, but that was a ridiculous tactic. If Captain Hubbard or any of his men spoke Portuguese, the game would be up before it had begun. Elspeth took a deep breath and marched straight past Captain Scot, to stand immediately before Captain Hubbard.

  She did not dare glance back at her Captain to see how he reacted to her sudden appearance; the Navy officer was visibly startled, and even took half a step backwards. Elspeth made a swift curtsy to him and said, "Captain Hubbard. It is an honour to meet you. Lady Elspeth Dunwoodie, at your service, sir. May I introduce you to Captain John Cardrew? This gentleman has been charged especially by my father, the Marquess of Crieff, to escort me and ensure my safety and comfort on my voyage from the West Indies home to our family estates in Aberdeen-shire."

  Captain Hubbard's lips moved soundlessly for a moment, then he bowed deeply. "L-lady Elbeth." He mispronounced her name. "The honour is all mine, your ladyship. Forgive me—Captain Cardrew—"

  Captain Hubbard was obliged to make a perfunctory bow towards the supposed Captain Cardrew. He was still glaring at him with distrust, but Elspeth pressed her advantage.

  "Perhaps you know my brother, Admiral Lord Charles Dunwoodie?"

  "I—not personally, your ladyship, but by reputation—yes, indeed."

  "May I ask, sir, to what we owe the honour of this visit? It is always a pleasure of course to meet with brave officers of the King's Navy, but Captain Cardrew informs me that we need to press on towards Aberdeen while the winds are fair." She had no idea whether the winds were fair or not—or even what that meant—but it sounded good, she thought.

  "The Perseus is sailing for Glasgow, your ladyship. But it is our duty to challenge—ships of dubious—you are flying no colours."

  Elspeth followed his glance up to the mast, which was bare of any flag. "Do you call my ship dubious, Captain Hubbard?"

  "No—no, of course not, your ladyship. I was unaware when I gave the order to intercept that your ladyship was on board."

  "Then I take it we may be on our way."

  She watched him glance with unease once more at Captain Scot, and at Stirling and the men, but when his gaze fixed again on her she could see that he was terrified. No doubt Captain Hubbard was a brave man when it came to facing a French man o' war, but in the Navy, promotion came almost entirely through preference and patronage. If he made an enemy of Admiral Lord Charles Dunwoodie, then Captain Hubbard could well find himself blocked from any future advancement.

  Nor could he afford to doubt that she was who she said she was, despite the bizarre appearance of her companions. The very inbred gentility that made it impossible for her to masquerade as a peasant girl, or walk inconspicuously through a Portuguese market-place, was working to her advantage here.

  "Of course, your ladyship," he said with a bow. "My apologies for having interrupted your voyage."

  "No apologies necessary, Captain. You were only doing your duty. Wait a moment, and I will write a note to my brother, commending your conscientiousness and courtesy."

  That absolutely won him over, and banished all misgivings. She could see the gleam of excited ambition in his eyes. "That is very kind of you, your ladyship."

  "Come this way, sir. As you were, Captain Cardrew."

  With a nod at her own Captain, whose expression she dared not yet glance at—but who had, she was all too aware, been rendered silent and impotent—she
swept back across the deck towards her cabin, Captain Hubbard following her.

  She hoped he would not notice the broken door, or indeed the blood that was still seeping into the handkerchief wrapped around her hand. Fortunately, Captain Hubbard stood respectfully in the doorway while she took out her writing case and scribbled some airy nonsense to Charles. She sealed the paper and addressed it in as large and flowing a hand as she could, directing it to Admiralty House for maximum effect.

  "There, Captain Hubbard," she said. "If you will send this to my brother, he will be sure to remember your name."

  "Thank you very much, your ladyship."

  "And you said that your ship is headed for Glasgow?"

  "Indeed, your ladyship."

  "A letter sent from Glasgow express to Edinburgh would arrive in good time, I imagine?"

  "By courier, it should take no more than a day, your ladyship."

  "Then perhaps you would be so good as to arrange for this letter to be couriered to its destination as soon as you make port." She retrieved the letter to Sir Duncan from underneath her pillow. "Here is a sovereign to cover the cost, and any other expenses."

  If he glanced at the direction and was surprised to see it addressed to a gentleman, Captain Hubbard did not betray any emotion. He took the sovereign with a good grace and tucked the two letters inside his jacket with a solemn pat at his breast, as if both were equally precious.

  Back on deck, he made short work of ordering his men back across the boarding planks and with a final salute from the officers on deck, the HMS Perseus sailed on.

  Almost as soon as he dropped his returning salute, the Captain started to stride about yelling orders at the men. Elspeth could not understand the words, but she gathered that their import was that they should do whatever it was sailors did to make the ship go as fast as it possibly could. Men began swarming up the rigging and pulling on ropes, and extra sails unfurled high on the masts.