Paxton and the Gypsy Blade (13 page)

“San Sebastian,” Tom said, almost dreamily. “The boys'll be on San Sebastian, and that's where we'll be, too.” He shook himself as if awakening, and headed for the door. “Well, let's get started.”

The nearest Paxton ship was in Boston, and wouldn't return to Charleston for at least four weeks. Two more were bound for England and couldn't be expected before February. With the rest, the pattern was dismally similar. The only way to get to San Sebastian was to take the
Marie
, the small pleasure sloop Jase kept in Brandborough, around Florida to New Orleans and pick up a Paxton ship there—assuming one could be had. Tom and Maurice each wore a money belt stuffed with gold coins and carried identical copies of Jason's letter to Thad Barton, the head of the Paxton shipping office in New Orleans. It had taken time to make their preparations, and they'd had to take an extra day for provisioning the sloop, but they could hope, with luck, to be in New Orleans by the beginning of November.

“Damn, but I wish I was going with you!”

Jase, Colleen, Tom, and Maurice stood on the dock, Jase leaning on rough crutches, Colleen at his side with a hand on his arm. Tom shook his head. “There's no way we can take you and you know it,” he said gently. “You did enough by hitting that pirate—and then getting out of bed to see us off.”

“A lucky shot,” Jase grumbled. “And any damned fool can get out of a bed.”

“Right. Which is what you are, seeing as you're supposed to be flat on your back for another two weeks at least.”

“I'll be the judge of that,” Jase snapped. “You're sure there's nothing else you'll need?”

“Got everything,” Tom said, patting the hilt of the rapier he had taken from the mantel. Forty inches of steel, the weapon had belonged to Marie Ravenne, the Raven with a silver guard.

“You watch out for hurricanes, now,” Jase warned for the dozenth time. “You see the signs, you head for shore as fast as you can.”

“We will,” Tom said, laughing.

“I just wish you could leave for San Sebastian from here.”

“I do, too,” Tom replied, “but the boys should be all right. Sir Theodotus paid to have them delivered safe and sound, so the chances are he'll get them that way. Besides, we shouldn't be delayed for long in New Orleans. Well …” He extended his hand. “The wind's right, and all this talk won't get us there any faster.”

Jase's grip was strong. “We'll be praying for you, Tom. Good luck, and Godspeed.”

“Thanks. Mama?” He let go of Jase's hand and, in a gesture that dated back to his childhood, touched the hair at his mother's temple. “Keep him off that leg,” he said, “and make plenty of Christmas cookies for us.”

Jase turned to Maurice as Colleen embraced Tom and whispered a choked goodbye. “A hell of a thing for you to come back to, but I'm glad you're here, Maurice. Take care of this son of mine, will you?”

“Sure will, Jase,” Maurice said, shaking the hand of the man who'd been more like a father to him than his own had. “And don't worry about them boys. Like Tom says, we'll have 'em home for Christmas.”

“I'm going to try to believe that, Maurice. I'm going to try very hard.”

Tom leaped abroad the sloop and took the tiller and sheet. Maurice cast them off forward, then aft, gave the boat a mighty shove, and jumped across the widening gap.

“Christmas!” Colleen called as the wind filled the sail and the sloop picked up speed. “We love you both!”

Tom turned to wave once, then put his mind and back to the task at hand. “Ready about!” he called.

The first of many tacks. The sloop lost speed, the sail luffed briefly, then billowed as it caught the wind again. One more tack and they passed the lighthouse and hit the Atlantic chop. A mile out, the trees onshore blurred to a solid mass of green. Tom steered southwest by south, tied off the tiller and sheet, and walked forward past Maurice, who was on his way to the tiny cabin below decks to get some sleep.

The wind was quartering from the east-southeast. Long rolling waves lifted and dropped the small boat. Spray was flung across Tom's face. New Orleans was well over a thousand miles away, but the
Marie
, if not exactly suited to deep water sailing, was fast and sure. Pensive, Tom reached inside his shirt and withdrew the amulet he wore on a gold chain. The amulet, an heirloom precious to the Paxtons, was of pounded gold filigree shaped into finely worked brambles clustered around a tree. Generations old, it had been left to Marie Ravenne by her father, whose wife had given it to him. Marie had given the amulet to her son, and since then it had passed from husband to wife, from mother to firstborn son, and thence to his wife. Jenny had worn the amulet, but she had died before Joseph was old enough to receive the charm.

Tom's fingertips strayed over the surface and traced the finely worked details. What the artist had had in mind he didn't know, but the symbols for him were powerful. Oaks were strong and long-lasting, brambles were resilient and tenacious. The name Paxton had embodied those virtues for five generations. Clutching the amulet a final time before letting it slip back inside his shirt, he swore there would be a sixth.

CHAPTER VII

“To your good health, sir.”

“Humph! Good health, indeed!” Sir Theodotus Vincent sprawled listlessly in the ribbon-back Chippendale armchair that had accompanied him to San Sebastian a little over a year earlier, and stared balefully down the highly polished mahogany pedestal table littered with the remnants of a light dinner of fruits and vegetables suitable for a hot and muggy evening. “How anyone could be healthy in this devil of a climate is beyond me.”

The truth was that Sir Theodotus had rarely been healthy for the past four and a half years. The departure—the kidnapping, as he perceived it—of his beloved Jenny had robbed him of spirit. Calamity had followed calamity: less than a year later, on April the eighteenth of 1807, Jenny's birthday, Lady Eugenia's heart had failed and she had passed away. For two years Sir Theodotus had lived in a slough of despond. Luckily, he had friends with influence, and on the supposition that a total change would help, he allowed himself to be posted to San Sebastian. Recently, however, he'd received a letter from Tom Paxton—addressed to both himself and Lady Eugenia, forwarded from England—informing him of Jenny's death less than four months before. The news had devastated him.

During his first six months as governor of the tiny island, Sir Theodotus had been a changed man. He had enjoyed the climate and the people. He had discharged his duties with dispatch and governed wisely. And then he had learned of Jenny's death, and had been thrown into a depression so severe that he could hardly get out of bed.

The mind-numbing paralysis had persisted. He could accept Lady Eugenia's death, but that he should have to endure Jenny's, that he had not seen her for almost five years and now lacked the chance to mourn her decently, was unbearable. Several days had passed, during which he sat and stared at the somber gray-blue sea imprisoning the island. At last, in August, during one mad night of ceaseless pacing, the scheme to kidnap Jenny's twins had sprung full-blown into his mind. Contacting the right person for the job without informing the whole world of his intent had consumed a month, and negotiations with the pirate Sanchez another week. Now Sanchez had been gone for over five weeks, and Sir Theodotus's patience was wearing thin.

Life had become one long exercise in keeping madness at bay. At first, he had tried to occupy himself with the minutiae of government, but his interest had waned quickly and he now contented himself with signing whatever papers were thrust in front of him. He tried reading, but books quickly bored him. He let himself slip into what approached a trance. He slept, he ate, he relieved himself. He drank too much—not a good idea, but a man had to do something to fill the hours. His attention dulled by boredom and waiting, he stared at walls and furnishings, the sea and the sky, whatever took his attention at the moment.

But what was there to see, really? The room in which he sat was a prime example: silver candelabra, each with six candles, illuminating the table; waxed floors without rugs to soak up the light; whitewashed walls with windows shuttered to keep out mosquitoes and other insects and keep in the heat. Ten more ribbon-back Chippendales were arranged against the wall. A Sheraton break-front sideboard and paintings of English landscapes reminded Sir Theodotus of a home far away from what had become a subtropical nightmare. A serving girl leaned sullenly against the wall, another lurked behind the door. Details, details, details. A candle flame reflected in a drawer knob. A quarter moon in an oil-painting sky. A moth flirting with incineration.…

Things, mere things. A man imbued things with life. Without meaning in a man's life, the objects that surrounded him were without meaning. If only Sanchez … “Damn, but I hate this place,” he swore.

“Oh, San Sebastian isn't all
that
bad,” Trevor Bliss said from the far end of the table, where he lounged contentedly and sipped from his glass. Even seated and at ease, Bliss presented a dashing figure with finely chiseled features beneath his sand-colored hair. “Remember,” he said with a chuckle. “The first snow has fallen at home by now. And I for one can do without chilblains, thank you.”

“An argument without merit, Captain,” Sir Theodotus said. “I'm tired of all this blasted rain and unending fecundity, not to speak of that damned sulfurous smoke that descends without warning every so often. I'm tired of unalleviated greenery everywhere I look and the ceaselessly pleasant weather. I long for a change of seasons, damn it all. I long for
contrast.
”

“Nonetheless, sir, I've rather enjoyed being posted here.”

“That's fine for you,” Sir Theodotus snorted. “You're young yet. You can make something fine for yourself in a place like this.”

“Yes,” Bliss agreed softly. “The Caribbean is ripe with opportunity if one dares to reach out and grasp when the chance presents itself.” He leaned back in his chair and considered both the wine and the situation. His rise in the Navy had been, if not meteoric, at least steady. He had distinguished himself under fire, committed no glaring blunders, and had made friends in the right places. And then, in a move that stunned him, the Admiralty had slapped him in the face with the command of a mere eighteen-gun sloop of war and posted him to an utterly insignificant island. Once again, he had been denied the prominence and riches he deserved.

Fortunately for Bliss, Napoleon Bonaparte, that diminutive madman who ruled France, kept stirring up trouble. The continuing hostilities between England and France during recent years had led to a situation in the Caribbean that was replete with potential for profit. The reason was simple, really. Since France, like any other country, rose or fell according to the world trade she generated, the British Parliament and crown had adopted the American Embargo Act and the Nonintercourse Act to hamper that country's trade whenever and wherever possible. As a result, all ships flying the flag of a nonbelligerent nation were forbidden under threat of seizure to sail from any foreign port to any French or French-held port without an intermediate call at a British port. Of course, enforcement required a British naval presence in virtually all corners of the world, including the West Indies. And Bliss's predecessor, Captain Wallingham, had been quick to teach him how being part of that naval presence could enrich him.

Sugar was king on San Sebastian. The three major planters, headed by Henri LeBusque, owned plantations on the opposite end of the island and raised cane, which, when crudely processed, yielded a dark, moist unrefined sugar called muscovado. After the muscovado was drained of molasses, it was stored in kegs for eventual shipment. The molasses, in turn, was either shipped to the United States to become rum, or distilled on the plantations and sold locally, or shipped abroad. Between them, the three owners completely controlled a moderate-sized cove that, when wind and tide were right, could accommodate a single large vessel. From this cove, at least one ship a month loaded with muscovado, molasses, or rum set sail directly for France. With Wallingham's connivance, the departures were not recorded. The scheme was elegant in its simplicity. Now Bliss, like Wallingham before him, would assure the planters that the
Druid
would be elsewhere when the ships sailed. In return, he would receive a healthy portion of the profits, which he could either reinvest in the venture or retain for his personal use.

Bliss wasn't so naive as to think that graft didn't exist; what surprised him was how easily it was engaged in. The knowledge that he was doing no more than thousands of others before him had done—plus his bitterness toward those who had betrayed him—made his decision easy and painless. His initial meeting with the planters lasted a half-hour. Two weeks later, the
Druid
was well to the north and west of San Sebastian when LeBusque's first ship sailed for France.

The rising inflection of a question caught Bliss's attention, and the captain set aside for the moment thoughts of the wealth he was accumulating. “I beg your pardon, sir?” he asked. “What was that?”

“Damned heat puts everybody to sleep,” Sir Theodotus grumbled. “I was asking what you thought should be done about LeBusque. The man has become insufferable. Just because he's the owner of the largest plantation on the island, he believes he's above the law.”

Bliss smiled. “Oh, no, sir. I don't think Henri feels like that at all,” he said smoothly. “I'd be glad to have a word with him, though, if you'd like. Even Monsieur LeBusque would have to admit his manner could be slightly less abrasive.”

“Thank you, Captain Bliss. I'd like that very much. You seem to have a knack for handling these merchants.” Sir Theodotus chuckled dryly. “How would you like to be governor?”