The Pirate's Widow Read online

  The Pirate’s Widow

  By

  Sandra DuBay

  © 2014 All Rights Reserved

  Also by Sandra DuBay:

  Beneath A Smuggler’s Moon

  By Love Betrayed

  Nightrider

  Quicksilver

  Tempest

  Wilder Shores of Love

  Scarlet Surrender

  Burn On, Sweet Fire

  By Love Beguiled

  Where Passion Dwells

  In Passion’s Shadow

  Whispers of Passion

  Fidelity’s Flight

  Flame of Fidelity

  Mistress of the Sun King

  The Claverleigh Curse

  Writing as Caroline Chase:

  Scoundrel’s Caress

  Writing as J.K. Crane:

  Catherine’s Curl

  Graves’ Landing

  Chapter One

  Hyacinth Cottage

  St. Swithin, Cornwall

  1721

  The sea was wild that night. Caroline Llewellyn called Callie by those who knew and loved her, could hear it crashing on the shore at the base of the cliff on which her cottage stood. And even though she was snug in her bed, if she closed her eyes she could almost believe she was once more on the deck of the Crimson Vengeance, the notorious pirate ship captained by Kit Llewellyn, her husband.

  But those days were long past. Kit Llewellyn was dead, hanged in London at Execution Dock with his crew and left dangling at the end of a rope until three tides had washed over that once-handsome face. Callie should have been there beside him; she had been tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death and but for the melee that had broken out on the way to the gallows, she would have been the first woman hanged for piracy in living memory. Anne Bonney and Mary Read had been convicted the year before but both had pleaded their bellies and so escaped the hangman’s noose.

  The crowds had been enormous that day when the procession left Marchalsea Prison heading for Wapping and Execution Dock. Callie wondered if it was vain of her to think that their numbers were swelled because of her. Pirate executions were not uncommon but to see a female pirate hanged, the paramour of the infamous Kit Llewellyn no less, she thought that might have been something to draw jaded Londoners out of their homes on a gloomy summer day.

  The procession left Marchalsea at mid-morning led by the High Court Marshal mounted on a fine black horse, the silver oar that bespoke the authority of the Admiralty prominently displayed. Two deputy marshals followed just in front of the cart that carried Callie, Kit, and five of Kit’s crewmen. A chaplain accompanied them but no one availed themselves of his services. They were surrounded by guards but even so, the cart stopped at a public house along the way to allow the prisoners to have the customary quart of ale to which all those on their way to the gallows were entitled.

  It was as they were nearing Execution Dock that the explosion came. A barrel of gunpowder exploded with no warning on a nearby dock. The jeers of the crowd became screams of panic. The horses reared and plunged; several spectators were trampled beneath their hooves and the motley gathering of those who had come to bid farewell to the infamous Kit Llewellyn and his raven-haired doxy, scattered, running this way and that, unsure if they were under attack.

  While pandemonium reigned, Callie found herself thrown from the cart. The rope binding her wrists was cut, she did not know by whom, but she was free. She looked up at Kit, still bound in the cart, so tall and handsome. She tried to fight her way to him. If she could reach him, she thought, she could free him as well and they could lose themselves in the fracas. But he shook his head.

  “Run, damn you!” His deep voice was barely audible above the screams of the crowd. “Run!”

  The crowd was calming, the marshals reforming the procession, bringing order out of the chaos. Callie had one chance, only one, to make good her escape. With a last look at the man to whom she’d pledged herself body and soul, with whom she’d sailed the oceans, the scourge of seafarers the world over, she pushed her way into the milling throng and disappeared.

  She was a few streets away when someone seized her skirts. Panicking, she tried to jerk them away but they were held fast and a voice cried: “Callie, Callie stop, it’s Jem.”

  She looked down into the bright blue eyes and freckled face of young Jem Wicke. He’d been a passenger on a merchant ship Kit had taken, traveling with his mother to take up residence with his stepfather, a planter in Jamaica. He’d begged Kit to allow him to join the crew, swearing that his stepfather beat him and his mother cared little about him. The mother did not seem overly alarmed at the thought of her boy running away to become a buccaneer and so Kit had agreed, though the boy was but eight years old at the time. He’d been with them aboard the Crimson Vengeance for nearly two years acting as Kit’s cabin boy and as a powder monkey when they went into battle. He’d been ashore when the Crimson Vengeance had been captured by the British Navy and so had escaped the gallows. Callie had never thought to see him again and yet, here he was.

  “We’ve got to get the captain!” he cried, still holding onto her skirt. “We’ve got to save him.”

  “We can’t, Jem,” she told him. “If we go back there, they’ll just hang us too.”

  “We can’t just leave him,” he insisted, tears filling his blue eyes.

  Callie took him by the narrow shoulders. “We have to, Jem. Kit told me to run when I was thrown from the wagon. He wanted me to get away. He’d want you to get away as well. Come on, they’ll be looking for us. You were known to be a member of Kit’s crew, you know. They condemned you in absentia. We’ve got to get out of London.”

  Callie heard later that Kit died a good death. Proud and unrepentant, he took his turn on the gallows with his men and was left for the tides to wash over. They looked for Callie for days, searching the London slums even using bloodhounds to try and track her to no avail. The superstitious said the Devil himself had come up from Hell to take her soul away. The truth was less divine . . . she stole a cloak and Jem lifted a purse of gold from a man insensible with drink in a public house and they boarded a mail coach. They were out of London before Kit’s body had been taken down from the gibbet where he’d met his end.

  They made their way to Cornwall where, in the crypt of an ancient, ruined chapel overlooking the sea, Callie filled a bag with gold from the treasure Kit had hidden there, took a brace of pistols, a pair of swords and a dirk for herself and one for Jem.

  “Do you know where all Kit’s treasure caches are?” Jem asked, tucking the sharp dagger into his belt.

  “No,” she replied, dropping a pair of pearl earbobs and a string of black pearls into her bag. “Only Kit knew where they all were. He wrote them all down in the journal he kept on the Vengeance. I hope the navy doesn’t find it when they start tearing the ship apart.”

  “Thievin’ bastards,” Jem muttered, forgetting no doubt that the Crimson Vengeance itself had once been a merchantman called the Seabird until Kit had captured it and, deciding that it was superior to his own ship, had taken it for himself. “What will we do, Callie?”

  “Start a new life.”

  “Here?”

  She nodded. “We can’t go back to the sea now, Jem. I don’t want to go back without Kit and you . . . well, they’ve hanged boys younger than you, you know. Someday, when you’re grown, I will give you your share of Kit’s treasure and you can do what you like, go where you will, be whatever you want. But for now, we need to remake ourselves, swathe ourselves in respectability and let the world forget that Jem Wicke and Callie Llewellyn exist.”

  “Forget Kit?” Jem asked.

  Callie smiled and touched his cheek. “We’ll never forget Kit. We’ll keep him in our hearts.”
>
  Jem nodded silently but she knew he was loathe to leave the past behind with its adventure and danger and wild excitement.

  For herself, had Kit not gone to the gallows, she would still be at his side, and he would still be striding across the deck of his ship. It had taken an Admiralty noose to end Kit’s love affair with the sea. Willingly she would have gone with him but he had told her to run and she had obeyed and now, she knew, he would approve of her taking young Jem to the furthermost reaches of Cornwall and shielding them both from the judging world with its harsh and deadly justice.

  Chapter Two

  The village of St. Swithin lay on the Cornish coast not far from Penzance. The cottage which the Misses Bates, a pair of middle aged spinsters, had to let stood on a rocky promontory overlooking the sea. The two ladies, similarly short, plump, and rosy cheeked, arrived to welcome Callie and Jem as their few possessions were being carried inside.

  “Welcome to Hyacinth Cottage,” the rounder of the two said brightly as they entered the cottage. “I am Sophie Bates and this is my sister, Penelope.”

  “How do you do,” Callie replied, smiling. “I am Caroline Jenkins. My son, Jem, is there, on the beach.”

  “You are in mourning,” Miss Penelope observed. “How long has it been since the reverend was taken to his reward, my dear?”

  In the letters they’d exchanged with regard to the cottage, Callie had portrayed herself as a recent widow, her husband, the Reverend Mr. Jenkins, having died a few months previously and his living gone to another, so she was in need of a home on modest terms for herself and her young son.

  “Nearly a year,” she answered, wondering what Kit would think if he knew she was passing herself off as the widow of a man of the cloth. “He was some years my senior.”

  “Are you certain you and your son will not be too lonely out here?” Miss Sophie asked.

  “Not at all,” Callie answered solemnly. “A peaceful and quiet life, that’s all we desire.”

  It seemed in the stillness she could hear Kit’s amused chuckle.

  “Well that’s what you’ll have, to be sure,” Miss Sophie assured her. “But I hope you won’t keep too much to yourself. I’m certain your husband was a wonderful man, but you are young and you must not think your life is over.”

  “I’m sure you are right.”

  “And who is this young gentleman?” Miss Penelope asked, as Jem approached, the sword he’d chosen from among Kit’s treasure in his hand.

  “This is Jem,” Callie told the ladies, “my son.”

  “How do you do, young master Jem,” Miss Sophie said, ruffling Jem’s red hair.

  “How do you do, ma’am,” Jem replied.

  “I see you are prepared, young sir, to protect your mother,” Miss Penelope said. “There are smugglers hereabouts. These cliffs are honeycombed with tunnels that have been used for centuries by smugglers and pirates, and all manner of rogues.”

  “If they try to trouble me, I’ll run the poxy bastards through,” Jem vowed.

  “Oh my!” Miss Sophie and Miss Penelope both laughed and Miss Sophie patted Jem’s cheek. “That’s the spirit, my lad. You’ll look after your mother, won’t you?”

  “That I will, ma’am,” he agreed, “or my name’s not Jem . . .” Callie held her breath. “. . . Jenkins,” he finished.

  “That’s fine, Jem,” Miss Sophie said. She watched him fondly as he disappeared into the cottage. “He’s a fine lad.”

  “That he is,” Callie agreed.

  “Now, Penelope and I will go away and leave you to settle in, but you must be sure to let us know if there is anything we can do for you. And you will ride to church with us on Sunday, won’t you?”

  “Oh. . ,” Callie hadn’t been inside a church in years, but she knew it was an important part of village life and it would go easier for Jem and her if they were to take part in all the village activities. “Thank you, we’d be happy to go with you.”

  The Misses Bates took their leave and Callie and Jem settled in to their new home. Along the way from London, they had purchased a small wardrobe for each of them from dressmakers and tailors shops, though Callie needed little in the way of variety, being a newly-minted widow, after all. It would be some months before she would have to worry about clothing.

  After a simple supper of cold ham and bread, Jem left to explore his new surroundings and Callie walked out onto the jutting promontory that ended in a rocky cliff overlooking the beach. The endless ocean stretched out before her but, without Kit, it held no attraction. She was not a sailor; she had lived aboard ship only because that was the life the man she loved had chosen. Had he been a hermit or a tailor she should have been happy in a cave or a haberdashery.

  She shielded her eyes against the glare of the setting sun but as she did a movement captured her attention. Down the beach, the rocky promontory curved toward a point that sheltered the harbor around which the village of St. Swithin lay. It was there, in that curve, that a man suddenly appeared as if he’d emerged from the solid rock itself.

  The rippling of her black skirts in the brisk wind must have captured his attention as well, for he suddenly looked toward her. She could not precisely make out his features but had the impression of a strong jaw and heavy brows beneath a head of dark brown hair. He had a dog with him, a large, shaggy creature of no determinate breed.

  As she watched, Jem appeared in the distance, rounding the furthermost point of the promontory. The man’s dog barked and ran toward him and she lifted her skirts to run to Jem’s aid though she could never have reached them before the dog got to him.

  “Cyrus!” The word was like the crack of a whip and the dog immediately stopped and returned to his place at the man’s side.

  Jem, however, kept advancing and he was soon beside the man, sword still clasped in his hand. The two were quickly in conversation and, from the way their eyes turned toward her, Callie had no doubt she was the topic of their discussion.

  After a few moments, the man went on his way down the beach and Jem returned to the cottage.

  “Who was that?” Callie asked him, her eyes still following the man until he disappeared around the rocky point.

  “Finn,” Jem told her. “And his dog is named Cyrus.”

  “Finn? Is that his Christian name or surname?”

  Jem shrugged as he brushed sand from the gleaming blade. “I dunno. He just said his name was Finn.”

  Chapter Three

  “Do I have to go?” Jem asked for the third time as he waited with Callie by the cart track that ran behind Callie’s cottage.

  “Yes, you have to go,” Callie said again, running her fingers through his unruly thatch of red hair. “If we’re going to make our home here, we must try to become a part of the village and village life revolves around church.”

  Jem sighed. “I wish . . ,” he began.

  “I know, so do I. Here they come.”

  A modest carriage appeared around the bend of the cart track. The Misses Bates were inside, dressed in their Sunday finest.

  “Callie,” Jem asked, “can I ride on the box with the driver?”

  “I don’t see why not.” She smiled at the sisters as the driver pulled on the reins and the docile old mare pulling the carriage stopped. “Jem would like to know if he might ride on the box.”

  “Of course, climb up, my boy,” Miss Sophie invited.

  Jem scrambled nimbly onto the seat beside Tompkins, the Bates coachman while Callie stepped up into the carriage and settled onto the seat opposite the two sisters. They rode along the narrow cart track passing others dressed in their Sunday best walking toward the ancient church overlooking in the center of St. Swithin.

  When they reached the church, Jem jumped down and gallantly helped the ladies down from the carriage.

  “Thank you, Master Jem,” Miss Sophie said with a smile. “I like to see a young man with good manners. Your mother has done a good job of raising you.”

  Jem grinned at Callie behind
the older ladies backs. If only they knew that Jem’s real mother had allowed him to join a pirate crew at the age of eight they might not be so impressed with her parenting skills. But Callie had taken him under her wing from the first though it was sometimes difficult to convince him that although he was a fully-fledged member of the crew of the Crimson Vengeance he was also an eight year old boy with a lot to learn.

  The church was approached through a lych gate and Callie and Jem followed the sisters up the path that led through the church yard and into the church where a huge carved wooden angel hung on the wall.

  “That’s the figurehead from the Archangel,” Miss Penelope told her as they took their seats in the Bates family pew. “It was owned by our father and went aground during a storm not far from here. A great many of the crew were lost and, as they were local lads, our father decided to put the figurehead there as a memorial.”

  “How fine,” Callie replied. “And the tomb there, near the altar?”

  Sophie nodded toward the large marble tomb at the front of the church. “That is the tomb of Lettice, Lady Sedgewyck, great-great-grandmother of the present Lord Sedgewyck. She was a great patroness of the church and so when she died her husband buried her in a place of honor.”

  “Is he not buried there with her?”

  “No, he preferred to be buried in the crypt beneath us.”

  If either Bates sister thought the arrangement strange they gave no sign of it and Callie had the opportunity to ask no more questions because a commotion began at the back of the church and spread forward. She looked over her shoulder to see a tall man in black, his coat and waistcoat heavily encrusted with gold embroidery, accompanied by two tall, thin ladies, one older, one younger though clearly related, making their way down the aisle toward the second of the box pews across the aisle from the Bates family pew.

  He stopped to allow the ladies to precede him into the pew and as he did looked down at the Misses Bates with a smile.

  “Miss Penelope, Miss Sophie,” he said with a gallant little bow. “You’re looking well today.” His smile faded as his dark eyes fell on Callie seated further down the pew.