The Lost Gentleman

‘No!’ Kate screamed, knowing Tobias’s foolhardy action would cost John Rishley his life.

It happened so fast that she could not have told how. One minute John Rishley was North’s shield, the next he had been thrown, alive and well, into another British grasp and a single slash of North’s blade had felled Tobias. She could see the dark stain spreading rapidly across Tobias’s chest, see the blood growing in a glistening pool on the scrubbed wooden deck beneath him.

Shock stole her breath.

The silence that followed was deafening. The seconds seemed to stretch.

Nobody moved.

Nobody spoke.

Kate stared. Tobias’s eyes were still wide open, dead and unseeing, staring with the same shock that she felt freezing like ice through her blood.

The priest, who seemed to be North’s second-in-command, walked over to where the body lay. Crouching down, he touched his fingers against Tobias’s neck.

‘Dead as a doorpost, I’m afraid,’ he pronounced softly, and gently swept the man’s eyes shut before murmuring the words of a final prayer and getting to his feet.

‘More is the pity. But we’ll take him dead just the same.’ North gave a nod.

With incredulous horror Kate watched as four of the British crew lifted Tobias’s body between them and carried it across the boarding plank to the bigger schooner.

North’s eyes shifted to where Sunny Jim’s hand still held Kate’s wrist. ‘Release her to us.’

‘And if we don’t?’ Sunny Jim demanded. His grip was gentle for all the ferocity of the part he was playing before North.

North’s gaze flicked coldly to Tobias’s lifeless form before returning to Jim’s. ‘We’ll kill every last man amongst you.’

She did not doubt North’s assertion, neither did anyone else. Every pirate and privateer who sailed these oceans had heard the stories of North the Pirate Hunter.

Sunny Jim’s eyes slid momentarily to Kate’s in veiled question. He would fight for her to the death, they all would, but she could not allow that, not all these men who had served her so loyally.

‘I am not worth one man’s life, let alone thirty,’ she answered. ‘Surely you see that?’ Words that could be those of a prisoner held against her will.

But Sunny Jim’s expression was stubborn. He had known both her grandfather and father and he was not a man to cut and run.

‘Give us the woman and the rest of you may go free,’ said North.

‘You think we would believe a story like that?’ Sunny Jim sneered at North.

‘You should—it is the truth. I have no interest in bringing in Coyote and her crew as a prize. My commission is purely for La Voile.’

She felt the hope that North’s words sent rippling through her crew. They did not fully believe him, but they wanted to. She knew it with a certainty, because she felt the same way, too. North could not be trusted, but, if he wanted, he could kill them all anyway and take her just the same.

Sunny Jim knew it, too. But still he wavered.

‘You must yield me to them,’ she said, as if pleading with her captor, when in truth it was the command he needed to hear.

He gave a nod, his gentle old eyes meeting hers in understanding and salutation. ‘If you want her so much, take her. And let us pray you do not lie, Captain North.’ In the role he was playing Sunny Jim threw her hard towards North.

The force of it made her stumble and almost fall, but North caught her and in one movement swept her behind him.

‘Oh, I do not lie, Mr Pirate. You need have no fear of that.’ She could hear the ironic curve on his mouth as he uttered the cool words.

But he was not smiling when he glanced at the priest. ‘Escort the lady to safety, Reverend Dr Gunner.’

The priest gave a nod and when he gestured ahead, she had no choice but to follow him, leaving behind Coyote and safety, and step with feigned willingness across the breach that divided her world from his.

* * *

On the British ship Kate stood by the bulwark, her grip so tight upon the rail that her fingers ached, watching them, watching North, watching what would come next.

Those crew who had been captured upon North’s ship were returned across the plank to Coyote. All of her men were lined up there, on their knees, most still bound and gagged. There was nausea in her stomach, an icy dread in her blood.

‘Will he kill them?’ she asked the priest, her eyes lingering on the scene on Coyote’s deck.

‘North does not lie. He will not take their lives, ma’am.’

But priest or not, Kate could not trust the words.

North moved.

Her heart missed a beat.

But he did not spray the deck red with blood as she feared. Instead, true to his words, he sheathed his cutlass and walked away, leaving them there as he returned to his own ship. In less than a minute all physical connections between the two ships had been severed, the boarding plank and pricey grappling hooks sent plummeting into the waves without a second glance.

As North’s ship manoeuvred carefully away from Coyote, Kate’s gaze held to Sunny Jim’s, but neither of them dared show one single sign. Behind her she could hear the creaking of the rigging and the crack of unfurling canvas and the movement of men busy at work. And before her, the distance of the ocean expanding between them as North took sail.

She was aware that North and the priest were somewhere behind her, but Kate did not look round. She just stood there and watched while the wind seemed to speed beneath North’s sails to leave Coyote further and further behind.

Until, at last, the dark shadow fell across her and she knew that North had come to stand at the rail by her side.

One second. A deep breath.

Two seconds. She swallowed and hid all that she felt.

And only then did she turn to face the man who was the infamous pirate hunter North.

* * *

Those dark eyes were looking directly into hers with a calm scrutiny that made her nervous.

‘North, Captain Kit North,’ he offered the unnecessary introduction. ‘Under commission from the British Admiralty to bring in the pirate La Voile.’

The hesitation before she spoke was small enough not to be noticed. ‘Mrs Kate Medhurst,’ she said, using her real name because it would mean nothing to him and because successful deception was best attained by sticking close to the truth.

He took her hand and just the feel of his fingers against hers made her shiver.

‘You are cold, Mrs Medhurst, now that our speed increases.’

She hated that he had seen it, that tiny sign of weakness, of fear. ‘A little,’ she agreed by way of excuse.

Before she could stop him he slipped off his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders.

She could feel the warmth of him still upon it, smell the scent of him too much in her nose—leather and soap, sunshine and masculinity. It surrounded her. It enveloped her. Bringing him close to her, making it feel like a gesture of intimacy that she did not want to share with any man, least of all him. She itched to tear his coat from her, to dash it at his feet, this hard-eyed handsome Englishman who was her enemy in more ways than he could imagine. But Kate knew she could not afford to yield to such impulses of emotion and controlled herself as carefully as ever she did.

‘Thank you,’ she said, but she did not smile.

‘You are safe with us.’

Safe? The irony of the word would have made her laugh had the situation not been so dire. ‘Even if I am an American? And there is—’ she hesitated in order to choose the word carefully ‘—disharmony between our two countries?’

‘Even if you are an American and there is disharmony between our two countries.’ There was the smallest hint of a smile around that hard mouth. ‘You are welcome aboard Raven, Mrs Kate Medhurst.’

‘Raven,’ she said softly. Of course.

‘The name of the ship.’

The name that, had she seen it, would have made all the difference in the world.

‘They said there was no name upon your ship,’ she said.

‘La Voile was not meant to see it.’

‘It was a trap,’ she said slowly, her blood chilling at the extent of his cold calculation.

North smiled. ‘The name would have tipped him off.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I am sure it would have.’ And knew it for the certainty it was. ‘Why take just La Voile and not Coyote and the rest of her crew? Why leave behind the greater part of the prize?’

‘I am not interested in prizes. My commission is for La Voile and only La Voile.’

‘I did not realise he was so important to the British. Surely compared to Jean Lafitte, he is just small fry?’

‘He is a big enough burr and one with the potential of becoming a rallying anti-British figurehead, much more so than Lafitte. Admiralty wish to cut off the head and leave the body in place to tell the tale, leaderless and ineffective. Which suits me. One man is easier dealt with than an entire crew and ship,’ he said.

‘So it seems.’ But things were not always as they seemed.

Her gaze held his for a moment longer, looking danger in the eye and seeing its ruthless, dark, infallible strength. She swallowed.

The tiny moment seemed to stretch.

‘Reverend Dr Gunner will escort you below to a cabin where you may rest. If you will excuse me, for now.’

She shrugged off his coat and gladly returned it.

A bow of his head and he was gone, moving across the deck to speak to his men.

Kate felt the tension that held her body taut relax, letting out the breath she had not known she was holding.

‘Mrs Medhurst...ma’am.’ The priest moved forward to her side.

One last glance of hope and longing out across the ocean to where Coyote and safety had diminished to little more than a toy ship upon the horizon.

The priest saw the direction of her glance and misconstrued it. ‘You really are safe with us.’

‘So Captain North reassures me.’ But if North were to realise the truth of who she was, of what she was... Captain Le Voile, as she always thought of herself. Such a subtle difference from La Voile, but one that was important to her. Le Voile or La Voile, it made no odds when it came to North. Either way she was the pirate captain of Coyote whom he sought.

You really are safe with us.

Kate gave a smile of irony. For what place could be more dangerous than aboard Raven with the deadly British pirate hunter who had been sent to capture her?

It was a sobering thought. She forced it from her mind and, with a nod, followed Reverend Dr Gunner below deck.

Chapter Two

‘I put her in my cabin. I’ll sleep on the deck with the men—naturally.’ Within Kit’s day cabin Gunner was lounging in a small wooden chair. The priest pulled a silver hip flask of brandy from his pocket, unstopped it and offered it to Kit as a formality. They both knew that Kit would refuse.

‘There’s a cot in the corner—you are welcome to sleep there.’ Kit was seated in his own chair behind the plain mahogany desk.

‘Are you suggesting I could not manage a hammock?’ Gunner downed a swig of brandy.

‘A man does not forget such things,’ said Kit and thought of the past years and all it had entailed for them both.

‘He certainly does not.’ Gunner grinned. ‘They will bury us in those damned hammocks.’

Kit smiled. ‘No doubt.’ He moved to the large rectangular window, looking out over the sea. ‘How is our guest?’

‘Resting. She has a remarkable resilience. Most women would be suffering the vapours at the mere suggestion of the ordeal she has endured. But maybe the shock of it has not hit home yet. Delayed emotional response following trauma—we have both seen it.’ Gunner came to stand by his side and met his gaze meaningfully. They both remembered the horrors of the year in that Eastern hellhole.

‘Has she any signs of physical hurt?’

‘None that I could see. I did explain I was a physician and enquired whether she had need of any assistance, but she declined, saying she was well enough.’

‘A lone woman amongst a crew of pirates... How well can she be?’ said Kit.

Gunner’s mouth twisted with distaste. ‘I am rather glad that you killed La Voile.’

‘I am not. They would have taken his life just the same in London.’ And Kit would have welcomed the extra money that would have paid.

‘Always the money,’ said Gunner with a smile.

‘Always the money,’ agreed Kit, and thought of what this one final job would allow him to do. All the waiting and planning and working, and counting every coin until the target was in sight, and the time was almost nigh. He pushed the thought away, for now. ‘I will have the day cot set up for you and space cleared for your possessions and clothes. If you will excuse me, I have got work to do.’

‘And always work,’ said Gunner.

‘No rest for the wicked.’ There was a truth in that glib phrase that few realised, Kit thought wryly. No rest indeed. Not ever. ‘La Voile is dead, the job is done. We go back to England and claim our bounty.’

‘And Mrs Medhurst? We cannot touch port in America. We’d be running the gauntlet with the flotilla of French privateers and pirates patrolling their coast. Even with all Raven’s advantages, she cannot match such numbers.’

Kit smiled. ‘We will drop the woman at Antigua when we victual. Fort Berkeley there will organise her return home.’

‘A good plan. But it has been so long since we were in the presence of a respectable woman, one cannot help speculate how her presence would have lifted the journey home. It would certainly have kept the men on their best behaviour.’

‘You are too long from home, my friend,’ said Kit drily.

Gunner gave a smile. ‘Perhaps.’ He was still smiling as he left the cabin, closing the door behind him.

Kit returned to his desk and the navigational charts that lay there. But before he focused his attention on studying their detail he thought once more of Kate Medhurst with her cool grey eyes: proud, appraising, wary and with that slight prickly hostility beneath the surface.

Disharmony between our two countries. He smiled at that line and wondered how a woman like her had come to be abducted by a shipload of pirates. And even more, how she had fared amongst them. For all the strength of character that emanated from her, she was not a big woman. Physically she would not have stood a chance.

Maybe Gunner had a point when it came to La Voile. Kit thought of his blade slicing through the villain’s heart. Maybe it was worth the gold guineas that it had cost him, after all.

He gave a grim smile and finally turned his attention to the charts that waited on the desk.

* * *

Kate forced herself to stop pacing within the tiny cabin in which they had housed her. She stopped, sat down at the little desk and stilled the panic roiling in her mind and firing through her body. Stop. Be still. And think.

Her eyes ranged over the assortment of medical books, prayer books and the large bible on the shelf fixed to the wall above the desk. On the desk itself were paper, pen and ink and a small penknife. She lifted the knife and very gently touched a thumb to test the sharpness of the blade. The priest kept the little knife razor sharp, potentially a useful weapon, but it was nothing in comparison to her own. The feel of the leather holster and scabbard, and their precious contents, strapped to her legs gave her a measure of confidence.

She would not hesitate to use either the knife or pistol on North if she needed to. Not that she thought it would come to that.

Coyote would come for her. It is what she would have done had one of her crew been taken. Regroup, rearm, follow at an unseen distance, then come in fast for the attack. Sunny Jim would do the same. She knew her men—they would not abandon her.

They would come for her and it was vital that Kate be ready. All she had to do was watch, wait and keep her head down. Not today, perhaps not even tomorrow, but soon. It was just a matter of time before she was back once more on her own ship, maybe even with Captain Kit North as her prisoner. She smiled at that thought. The Lafitte brothers, the men who oversaw most of the mercantile, smuggling, privateering and pirate ventures around Louisiana, would pay her well for him. With North off the scene it would be a great deal safer for them all. She smiled again, buoyed by the prospect.

She pleaded fatigue that night so as not to have to join them for dinner, eating instead from the tray he sent to her cabin. Coyote would not come tonight, and as for North... An image of him swam in her head and she felt nervousness flutter in her stomach...she would defer facing him until tomorrow.

* * *

But of North the next morning there was no sign. It was the priest, Reverend Dr Gunner, who sat with Kate at breakfast and the priest who offered her a tour of Raven. She accepted, knowing the information could be useful both to Coyote and to all her fellow pirate and privateer brethren.

‘I could not help noticing that Captain North was not at breakfast.’

‘North does not eat breakfast. He is a man of few needs. He takes but one meal a day.’

‘A man of few needs... What else can you tell me of the famous Captain North?’

‘What else would you like to know?’ He slid her a speculative look that made her realise just how her question had sounded.

‘All about this ship,’ she said.

Reverend Dr Gunner smiled, only too happy to oblige.

Raven was bigger than Coyote, but the lower deck was much the same. There were more cabins and the deck contained not cargo, but long guns. Better gunnery than Coyote carried. So much better that it made her blood run cold. Two rows of guns, some carronades, others long nine pounders, and a few bigger, longer eighteen pounders, including two as bow chasers, lined up, all neat on their British grey-painted, rather than the American red-painted, wheeled truck carriages and secured in place by ropes and blocks. There were also sets of long oars neatly stored and ready for use, something that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

‘You are oared,’ she said weakly.

‘They do come in handy at certain times when the wind does not blow. And we are sufficiently crewed to man them easily enough.’ The priest smiled. ‘We are also carrying extra ballast to make us lie low in the water,’ he explained. ‘To give the illusion we are heavily laden with cargo.’

‘You were deliberately posing as a merchantman.’

‘Captain North’s idea. He said that when you have a whole ocean to search for La Voile the easiest thing would be to have him come to us. He said it would work.’

‘And it did.’ A shiver ran through her at North’s cold, clever calculation and how easily and naïvely she had stepped into his trap.

‘It did, indeed, Mrs Medhurst,’ Gunner agreed with an open easy smile as he led her into a room that was lined with wooden and metal hospital instruments.

Her eyes ranged around the room as he spoke, taking it all in, and stopping when they reached the huge sealed butt in the corner. The sudden compassion on Reverend Dr Gunner’s face and his abrupt suggestion that they progress to the upper deck confirmed the butt’s macabre contents: Tobias. She was relieved to follow the priest up the ladder out into the fresh air and bright sunshine. But the relief was short lived.

North was already out on deck, taking the morning navigational reading, chronometer, sextant and compass clearly visible; a man absorbed in his task. The blue-sheened raven sat hunched on his shoulder, as if it were party to the readings.

His shirt was white this morning, not black, and he was clean shaven and hatless, so that she could see where the sun had lifted something of the darkness from his hair to a burnished mahogany. It rippled like short-cut grass in the wind. In the clarity of the early morning light his golden tanned features had a harsh handsomeness that was hard to deny. But even a rattlesnake could look handsome; it did not mean that she liked it any the more.

North saw her then, cutting those too-perceptive eyes to her in a way that brought a flutter of nerves to her stomach and prickle of clamminess to her palms.

He gave her a small nod of acknowledgement, but he did not smile. Indeed, his expression was serious, stern almost. Nor, to her relief, did he make any movement towards her. Instead he turned his attention back to his measurements and calculations.

‘Do not mind North,’ said Gunner with good humour. ‘It is his manner with everyone. He is a man who takes life too seriously and works too hard.’

As she followed the priest over to the stern of the ship, her eyes scanned the ocean behind them and saw the distant familiar shapes of islands across the water, but nothing else.

She leaned against the rail, feel the cooling kiss of the sea breeze, noticing both its strength and direction as she watched the frothy white wake Raven left behind her. Just looking at the ocean, just being on it, never failed to comfort her. Her gaze dropped to the tall lettering that named North’s ship, tall and clear and stark white against the rich black paint of the stern. Raven.

‘There was no name upon this ship when the pirates approached.’ She looked at the priest with a question in her eyes. ‘I am sure of it, sir.’ But was she? Had such a basic mistake brought her to this situation? ‘At least, I thought I saw nothing and I sure was looking to see who you were.’

‘Do not doubt yourself, madam. There was no name for the pirates to see. Look more closely.’

She walked toward the stern and leaned over it to examine the painted name, and saw exactly the device North had used. ‘There is a long black plank, like a frame fixed above the lettering.’

‘Largely invisible from elsewhere. It can be flipped down to cover the name.’

‘How clever.’ So clever that it frightened her.

‘It is, is it not? North is clever.’

‘How clever?’ she asked, needing to know the full measure of the man who was her enemy.

‘Do you know anything of ships Mrs Medhurst?’

‘I do,’ she admitted with a nod. ‘Both my father and grandfather were shipwrights and sailors. There have been sailors in my family for as far back as can be remembered.’

He smiled. ‘Then look up at Raven’s sails and rigging.’

She did as he bid and what she saw stole the words from her tongue. Gone was the tatty patched ordinary canvas found on many merchant schooners, and in their place was a large spread of pristine-looking sails. She felt the prickle of cold sweat at the sight.

‘And our hull is longer and sleeker than most ships of this size. North’s own design. The combination of the hull design and the sail spread allow us uncommon speed and manoeuvrability, making us faster than most pirate ships.’

‘I did not see any gun ports either for the guns below.’

‘Optical illusion.’ Reverend Dr Gunner smiled again. ‘We are carrying eighteen big guns, as well as several small swivel guns.’

Compared to Coyote’s arsenal of eight guns.

‘Our men are drilled to fire one-minute rounds. And—’ he could barely contain his excitement ‘—we have a special powder mix that extends the range of our shot.’

‘Oh, my!’ she said softly.

‘Not to mention our personal weaponry.’ He pulled part of the enormous cutlass from the scabbard that hung from his left hip, to expose a small section of the silver shining blade. ‘It is a special high-tensile steel from Madagascar. There is nothing to match its combined hardness and flexibility. And we carry an armament that would kit out an army. We are the very best, or, depending on whose point of view one takes, the very worst of what sails upon these seas. We can best any pirate.’ He smiled again.