Читать книгу The Pleasure Chest - Jule Mcbride - Страница 6

New York, 1791

“PUT AWAY YER MUSKET, Basil Drake, and say you won’t be shootin’ me today,” called Stede O’Flannery. He hazarded a glance from behind the trunk of an oak, squinting green eyes that Basil’s fiancée, Lucinda, had vowed were the color of sunlit shamrocks. He shook his head, unable to believe Basil had brought a smoothbore musket to the woods, a sixty-nine caliber French Charleyville by the looks of it, equipped with a bayonet. So much for using comparable weapons. Stede only had a flintlock pistol.

“Show yourself, O’Flannery,” yelled Basil. “You’re a damn rascal, and I insist on this interview.”

Oh, Sweet Betsy Ross, Stede thought grumpily. Raising his voice, he shouted, “I didn’t dishonor Lucinda!”

“You were caught red-handed in her bedchamber, man!”

Literally, since he’d been lying on top of her, unlacing her bodice with wind-chapped fingers.

“She was shivering, O’Flannery!”

With cold, though, not sexual need. She’d been drenched from the plunge she’d taken into the freezing Hudson River, after saying she’d sooner kill herself than marry Basil. Not that anyone had bothered to credit Stede with saving her life. “No good deed goes unpunished,” he mused. When Basil’s voice sounded again, Stede pushed aside a vision of blond tresses trailing over creamy bare bosoms.

“You’re a no-account scoundrel!”

True. But could Stede help it if war had made him wealthy? Or if his reputation excited women more than when they entertained bores like Basil? Or if, in addition to being a privateer, he could paint landscapes that came alive and made ladies swoon? Besides, Lucinda was his patroness, nothing more. One of many. Because Stede’s own mama, rest her soul, had been Lucinda’s nurse, he’d known Lucinda for years. It was she who’d encouraged him to paint, claiming that fruits in his still lifes made her mouth water as if from a lover’s kiss. But who was her lover? After reading her private letters, Basil had assumed Stede was the man.

“Maybe I should kill you now and be done with it, Basil.”

“It’s you they’ll carry from here in a pine box!”

“Doubtful.” Dueling was illegal in New York, so they’d crossed the river to Jersey, and now Stede glanced where early morning fog was rolling from the Hudson’s choppy waters, looking as thick as pipe smoke. Because he was tall, slender, blond and clothed in white, Basil looked ethereal, like an unlit taper in the shadowy dawn. Neither he nor Stede had brought seconds. This way, Stede had figured Basil could back down without losing face. Basil had claimed the same, but judging by how he’d handled himself on fox hunts with Lucinda’s father, General Barrington, Stede knew Basil couldn’t shoot his way out of a burlap sack, not even with a good musket.

“C’mon, Basil. I really don’t want to kill you on this fine mornin’.” Not that it would be any great loss. The officious fool was twice Lucinda’s age, but her father had been impressed by his supposed good name and rumored inheritance. Meantime, Stede heard the family had fled to the colonies years ago to escape Basil Senior’s gaming debts. Well, Stede thought, as Poor Richard always said, “Light purse, heavy heart.” Maybe debting accounted for Basil’s lack of decent humor.

“Show yourself, O’Flannery!”

Stede’s trigger finger itched on his pistol. Truth was, every fellow who drank in McMulligan’s would thank Stede for killing Basil. “He who drinks fast, pays slow,” said Stede, voicing another Poor Richard-ism. It was why Mark McMulligan hated Basil even more than Lucinda did. Stede sighed. The revolution might be over, but hatred lasted forever. Even now, a fleet was in New York harbor, and captains were ready with letters of marque that would allow them to intercept merchant vessels for plunder. While Stede could board any one of them tonight and escape Basil’s wrath, not to mention General Barrington’s, he’d buried war booty nearby on Manhattan Island; some of it was hard-won by his father, rest his soul, and Stede had hoped to use the treasure to build a home and settle down.

“Is that too much for a man to ask?” he exploded, sensing that his dreams were going up in smoke. Damn if this situation wasn’t about as welcome as the Stamp Act. What had that fellow, Rousseau, said? Yes…“Man’s born free, but everywhere in chains.”

“When they’re not conscripting you into somebody else’s army,” he muttered, “a bunch of jealous suitors and worried papas start gunning for you.”

Long moments passed. As usual. Duels took forever. A man could sail to China and back before they were over, which was why Stede preferred pub brawls any day.

Leaves rustled. Birds took flight. In the silence, his heart ticked like a clock, saying it was too early to be in the woods on a cold morning when he could be tucked in his cot above McMulligan’s with some sweet serving wench. Tired of waiting, he stepped from behind the oak, deciding he’d better throw away his fire. Yes, he’d offer a delope, which is what Basil would call it, since he insisted on using all the latest fancy French dueling terminology.

Slowly, so Basil could see, Stede stepped fully into view and raised his arm, pointing the pistol skyward. The autumn air was misty, but sharp, carrying scents of winter. Colors burst inside his mind, and for a second, he imagined painting a picture of the russet and gold canopy of leaves. He’d make the trees look like uniformed soldiers surrounding the foggy clearing, preparing to march to a massacre across a soft blur of grass. Yes, the red leaves were redcoats….

He squeezed the trigger.

The retort was swift, the blast threatening to knock him back a pace, but he stood firm.

“Ah. So you concede!” yelled Basil. Grandly Basil pushed aside his waistcoat, then prepared to shoulder his musket while striding forward to shake hands. Good. Stede would rather swallow a spoonful of his pride than prolong this idiocy. At twenty paces, Basil stopped, a glint in his eyes that Stede could see even at this distance. Suddenly Basil released a war whoop and charged, coming at a dead run. If the ball didn’t kill Stede, the bayonet mounted to the musket barrel surely would.

“Bloody bastard!” Stede gasped, pivoting and darting toward the woods. He’d conceded by shooting skyward, but Basil was going to kill him, anyway! And there was no time for Stede to reload. He’d brought no witnesses. “Lout!” Stede shouted as Basil closed the distance.

He whirled in time to see Basil aim at his heart, then hit the dirt as Basil fired. Boom! Air whooshed overhead as a bullet passed, then another blast sounded, but from where? Basil hadn’t had time to reload, either. Now he shrieked and dropped his pistol. He was hit! Someone had fired at Basil from the trees. Who?

Stede scanned the woods, then looked at Basil. He was staggering backward, clutching his chest, blood spilling through his splayed fingers. “Sweet Betsy Ross,” Stede cursed. Basil was a horse’s behind, but he didn’t deserve to die. His knees were buckling, though, and he fell backward. As he rolled onto his belly, Stede holstered his pistol and approached at a crouching run. Kneeling, he took Basil’s pulse.

“Dead.” There was still no sound from the woods. He shouted, “Who’s there?”

A heartbeat passed, then Lucinda Barrington ran into the clearing. With the color drained from her face and clad in a white cloak, she looked like a ghost, the vision marred only by the mud splattered around the dress’s hem, and the fact that her slender shaking hands held a flintlock pistol much like Stede’s; it probably belonged to her father.

Before he could say anything, another male voice sounded from the woods. “Lucinda!”

Ignoring the cry, she raced toward Stede, her hair flying behind her. “Hurry,” she urged as he registered her pursuer’s footsteps in the underbrush, then the thunder of horses’ hooves.

LUCINDA STARED at Basil, stricken. “I meant to scare him,” she whispered shakily. “But I didn’t mean to…” Tears sprang into her blue eyes. “I hit him, didn’t I? I really hit him! He was going to kill you, though. And since he didn’t, now my father will. Oh, Stede! Everyone thinks you and I…”

Are lovers, he finished mentally.

“You’ve got to get out of here!” She tossed a wild glance toward the trees. Men were approaching, probably with her father. He wouldn’t be the first to think his daughter’s virgin heart had been captured by a swarthy privateer, either.

“Basil hired that witch, Missus Llassa, too,” Lucinda raced on, her startled eyes still fixed on Basil. “He paid her to put a hex on you, Stede, just in case you killed Basil, instead of the other way around.”

His heart missed a beat. “Missus Llassa put a hex on me?”

“You know you don’t believe in hexes,” said Lucinda.

Stede knew no such thing. Besides, many claimed Missus Llassa’s evil magic could kill a man from a hundred miles away. There was no time to argue the point, though, because Jonathan Wilson, a local furniture maker, emerged from the fog wearing a top-hat and black cape, looking as if he, too, were materializing from an old-fashioned ghost tale. His face turned chalk-white when he saw Basil, then he ran forward, just as Stede had, kneeled and took the man’s pulse once more.

“Holy sons of liberty,” he whispered simply, his eyes widening as he took in the blood pooling beneath Basil’s chest. He stared at Lucinda. “You killed him, darling.”

Darling? So, Lucinda’s secret lover was Jonathan Wilson! Well, good for her, Stede thought. It had been months since Basil and General Barrington had announced Lucinda’s engagement to Basil without even consulting her. But all along, the smart girl had other plans—to marry Jonathan, at least judging by the glance they were exchanging. Too bad Basil was what General Barrington had wanted for his daughter’s future, Stede suddenly fumed. While Jonathan Wilson was a Presbyterian, Basil Drake had remained an Episcopalian, and like every other scoundrel from the Church of England, he’d always been a closet loyalist, too. Not that Stede, himself, had a religion of preference. The way he figured it, if he went inside any kind of church, the roof would cave in.

“Basil’s really dead,” Lucinda said in a stunned whisper, bringing Stede back to his senses.

He cursed softly, thinking of the war booty he’d buried a stone’s throw away, then of the cold fury on General Barrington’s face if he ever realized his daughter had killed her own fiancé to save the life of a privateer, especially one known as a n’er-do-well. Missus Llassa’s hex didn’t give much comfort, either. Stede imagined her lounging in her smoky den of iniquity, clad in a turban and kaftan, smoking opium and chewing snuff by candlelight while surrounded by cards, crystals, pouches of ground bones, herbs and chemical-laced jars that held unspeakably creepy things.

Yes, by now she’d probably made a doll into the spitting image of Stede and was busy pushing pins into it. Or maybe she was in his room above McMulligan’s, combing hairs from his straight razor while fixing to boil them in the cauldron she kept out back, behind her shack. Feeling the blood drain from his face, he recalled the story of one poor fellow whose spurned lover had hired Missus Llassa, to teach him a lesson. Rumor had it, his cock never crowed again, so to speak.

Cutting off the horrifying thought, Stede looked at Lucinda and Jonathan. They were star-crossed lovers, all right. And while Stede was within his rights for killing Basil, since Basil had challenged him to the duel, Lucinda could hang for this. And regarding her, Basil’s only crime was that he’d threatened to marry her. Hers, of course, was that she’d been born a woman at a time when fathers could tell the gentler sex who to marry.

Once more, Stede sighed, muttering, “Sweet Betsy Ross.” Then he slipped his hand over Lucinda’s. It was still shaking and her skin was ice-cold. As he took the pistol, his eyes met the other man’s. “Get her out of here,” he said.

Horses were still approaching through the trees. “General Barrington and some men from town,” Jonathan explained. “They were on my tail.”

“How many?”

“Ten. Maybe more.”

“Take Lucinda and go,” Stede repeated. But Jonathan seemed to know the sacrifice Stede was making, and he wavered, questions playing in his eyes. Stede wasn’t about to let Lucinda ruin her life, however, not when she’d saved his. Besides, Lucinda was the only one who’d ever encouraged his passion for painting. “Go on,” he urged.

Nodding abruptly, Jonathan slipped his arm around Lucinda’s shoulders and glanced toward the woods. “If we can, we’ll head them off. Unless you want to stay and claim responsibility for…”

Lucinda gasped. “Basil’s family might retaliate!”

People would assume Stede had killed Basil, fair and square, and Stede didn’t want Lucinda and Jonathan vouching for him, since that would destroy Lucinda’s reputation. But she was right. Basil’s family might wind up crying foul play to redeem Basil’s honor. Even if no one retaliated by killing Stede, the influential family could make Stede’s life miserable.

Lucinda broke from Jonathan’s grasp and flung herself into Stede’s arms. His arms circled her waist instinctively as she kissed his cheek. “I can’t let you take the blame for this.”

He placed a finger on her lips, silencing her. “You saved my life.”

Her gaze darted to Basil’s body once more, then she glanced a final time at Stede and turned, whispering one last word as she grasped Jonathan’s hand. “Godspeed!”

And then Stede found himself alone in the woods with the body of the man who’d tried to kill him in cold blood. Still holding Lucinda’s smoking gun, he hoped Basil hadn’t really hired Missus Llassa, the most highly esteemed witch in America.

“If I’ve got a hex on me,” he muttered, “I’d sure like to know what kind.” One thing was certain. There would be no asking Basil. And if Stede stuck around much longer, he’d be out of this frying pan and into the fire. Squinting at Basil, he considered his next move. Then, just as the first horse came into view, Stede leaned and grabbed Basil’s musket. Shouldering it, he growled, “Sweet Betsy Ross,” a final time, then he slipped between the trees and vanished into shadows.