Unclaimed Heart Page 6

  Alexandre shook his head. De Locke cocked the gun. “Answer me!” he screamed. “What are you hiding in there? Alexandre, how could you?”

  Then the voice boomed to them on the wind, made brassy and flat by the speaking trumpet. “You can give her up now, or we will use force.”

  De Locke’s head snapped around. “Blackchurch!” he spat.

  Alexandre saw his chance and scrambled to his feet. A gunshot followed him. He ran to the side of the ship and dived.

  Constance curled up on her bed, pulling the covers over her head. Father had looked so fearsome, his eyes glittering, anger and excitement threaded through every muscle of his body. She could hear shouted commands, the cannons being wheeled into place. Something awful was going to happen, she just knew it. Then she heard Father’s voice through the speaking trumpet.

  “You can give her up now, or we will use force.”

  Tears squeezed out from under closed eyelids. It was true then—Father was a pirate and he couldn’t even control his impulses on this one journey with his daughter aboard. She wanted to run up there and stop him, tear the gunners’ hands off the cannons, plead with her father for life and mercy. But the image of him in her dream returned, of the pistol levelled at her head.

  Minutes passed; nothing happened. In the distance she could hear gunshots.

  Then a huge thundering bang clattered through the ship. She pulled her pillow over her head and screamed into it, sobbing. Another bang. She tried to burrow further into her bed, but the mattress was hard, unyielding. Another bang.

  She sat up and howled, terrified and overwhelmed. Men’s voices shouting, sounds of water, splashing. She ignored Father’s warning, put her face to the window. The captain of the other ship—a small pearler—and two native crewmen stood at the starboard of the vessel, hands raised in a gesture of surrender. One of Good Bess’s boats was on its way across the distance, Maitland at the helm, six crewmen with him. Why would Father bother to raid such a small vessel? It seemed cruel, and her heart ached for the captain, a doughy man with springy red curls, who looked frightened sick. What would they do to him now? She’d heard awful things about pirates: plank-walking, throat-cutting, keel-hauling. Her heart fluttered, and she felt she might faint. As the boat pulled up alongside the pearler, she had to look away.

  As she did so, a head popped out of the water on the other side of Good Bess. Startled, she fell back onto her bed. She had to climb up and look again. A man, perhaps a few years older than herself. He must have come off the pearler, swum underwater . . . how was that possible without his being seen? He was looking up at the ship, looking up, she realized, at her. With pleading eyes.

  Constance glanced from the young man to the scene over at the pearler, then back again. And determination gripped her. She wouldn’t let Father do his horrible deeds to all those innocent men. She could save at least one of them.

  “Wait,” she called. She went to her door, kicked the trunk aside, and hurried out, past cabins to the main-deck steerage, where she found a long rope. She took it back to her cabin, careful to close her door behind her and seal it with the trunk again—against pirates—and tied the rope around the foot of her bed. Being a seaman’s daughter had its benefits; she had been able to tie a thousand different knots since her eighth birthday.

  She cast the other end of the rope down to the young man, who climbed up through her window and landed, sopping wet, on her bed.

  “Are you well, sir?” she asked. “You were underwater for a long time.”

  He stood, looking at her, but didn’t speak. She realized he might not know English. She also realized that he had the darkest eyes she had ever seen, almost black, miles deep. Time slowed as she measured the depth of those eyes; a slow flush suffused her skin, from her toes to her scalp.

  She shook her head. Why was she thinking such things at a time like this? “I have no dry clothes for you,” she said.

  He shrugged, to show he didn’t mind being wet. So he did understand her. Why, then, didn’t he speak?

  “I’m Constance. I’m the captain’s daughter. I’m sorry—I didn’t know he was . . . I’m so sorry.” The tears squeezed out again, and the young man stood in a growing pool of seawater, looking at her with his bottomless eyes and saying nothing.

  “I don’t . . . I don’t know what to do now. He’ll come. We’ll have to hide you. Get you ashore somehow. We’re going to Ceylon. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll . . .” She met his gaze, tried a smile. “What is your name? Can you tell me?”

  The corners of his mouth lifted in a smile—and seemed to lift the corners of her heart with it. He barely opened his lips, but his name came out clearly nonetheless.

  “Alexandre,” he said. “And I am in your debt.”

  Chapter 7

  GULF OF MANNAR

  Constance opened her mouth to ask another question, one that she forgot instantly when the brisk knocking at the door commenced.

  “Constance? It’s your father. You can open the door now.”

  Constance yelped, pushed Alexandre into the corner behind the dresser. “Hide,” she hissed.

  “I need to speak to the captain,” he muttered.

  “No, you must hide. He’s dangerous.”

  “I must ask him for a passage. I can pay him.”

  “But he’s—”

  The knock became thunderous, Father’s voice alarmed. “Constance? Are you there? What’s wrong? Are you harmed?” He began to push against the door; the trunk began to move.

  “I’m fine!” she called shrilly. “Don’t come in, I’m . . .” She couldn’t think quickly enough. “I’m dressing,” she said.

  “You’re already dressed. I saw you this morning. What’s going on?” Then he stopped talking and started shoving, and the trunk slipped in short jumps across the floorboards. She pushed Alexandre’s head down, and he crouched behind the dresser while she ran to the door.

  With her foot, she pushed the trunk out of the way. The door fell open. Father glared at her. “What’s wrong? You’re shaking.”

  “All the noise. It frightened me.” Her mind was scrambling for lies, but not quickly enough. Father’s eyes caught on something behind her. She turned. Alexandre was standing up, in clear sight. What on earth was he thinking?

  Father pulled out his pistol, thumbed back the striker and aimed it at Alexandre. It was too similar to her nightmare. Reality grew sharp edges. Her heart seemed to catch on her ribs. “No! Don’t kill him! Don’t kill him, you scoundrel!” she shouted, kicking her father in the shin.

  Father turned to her, an expression of anger and shock in his eyes. Alexandre put his hand to his lips, then held it out. On his palm was a gleaming pearl.

  “Captain, I am Alexandre Sans-Nom, and I require only a passage home to France,” he said, clearly now. “This is everything I have.”

  “What the blazes are you doing in my daughter’s cabin?”

  Constance rushed in. “It’s my fault, Father! I let him in. I thought you were going to kill him.”

  Father shook his head incredulously, returning the pistol’s striker to the safe position and tucking it at his waistband. “I might have killed him, Constance. But only because he’s in your cabin. How did he get on board?”

  Constance indicated the rope tied to the leg of her bed.

  “Are you mad? You know nothing about him. He might be a scurvy knave. He might have—”

  All her feelings welled up into her throat, demanding to be released. “He’s an innocent man! Like the other men on that ship you just took by force. I know you’re a pirate, but are you a murderer too?”

  “Please, sir,” Alexandre continued, calmly. Constance could hear he had a French accent. “I am done with de Locke. I want only to return to my homeland. Don’t send me back to him.”

  “Back to France? We’re at war with France!” Father looked from one of them to the other, his palms up as though he didn’t know whether to slap their faces or block his ears. “Listen to the bot
h of you. Not an ounce of sense between you. Young man, keep your jewelry. You will be incarcerated in the hold until I can decide what to do with you. Don’t worry, I won’t send you back to de Locke because I know too well what kind of a man he is. And Constance, I need to speak with you, for you have formed an opinion of me that . . .” He trailed off into red-faced frustration. “I need to speak with you,” he repeated quietly. “Wait here.”

  He took Alexandre by the elbow.

  “Don’t hurt him!” she called.

  “Of course I won’t hurt him,” he replied hotly.

  Alexandre went with Father willingly, falling once again to silence. Constance sat on her bed, heart thundering and face hot. Should she try to escape? Surely Father wouldn’t harm her, would he?

  Hours later, he came back. She had spent the intervening time calming herself, reminding herself that a man who loaned his daughter his only pillow would not also want to shoot her. But in the process, she made herself sad. She had lost her mother, and her father terrified her. All she had was Violet and Daphne, and they were so far away. She felt mournful, homesick, sorry for herself. Waiting and waiting for Father’s return.

  “Come on, lass,” he said, taking her by the elbow. “We’ll go up to the poop. I think we both need a good dose of fresh air.”

  She allowed herself to be led. Outside, the sky had silvered to twilight, pale pink clouds lay over the rolling waves. Constance was surprised to see that they were near land. The ship was hove-to, sails arranged so it would bob quietly in the water, so she knew they would not be staying here for long. Sea birds circled overhead. As she climbed the ladder to the poop, she saw that the ship’s boat was arrowing away towards a small, overgrown island. Maitland rowed the boat, and the captain of the pearler, de Locke, sat guarded by two other crewmen.

  “What are you going to do with him?” Constance asked, pausing on the ladder.

  Father, who was already above, gave an irritated grunt. “Come, child. Don’t dither.”

  She climbed up and joined him on the poop. He was leaning on the rail, watching the boat’s journey. She waited, her mouth dry. He turned, eyebrows momentarily angry. With visible effort, he tried to smile. “Constance, I am not what you think I am.”

  She didn’t know how to answer, so she said nothing.

  “De Locke is an old enemy. The Queen of Pearls is mine, won in a dispute over money. I own the title deed. He stole her.”

  Now she was puzzled.

  “As to your question about what we will do with him, we are going to leave him on that island with provisions enough to sustain him until we are well away. This is a common trade route; somebody will find him before long. But he is not trustworthy, and I don’t want him following us.”

  Constance looked around. “Where’s the pearler?”

  “Two of my men have already sailed her off to Nagakodi. We’ll meet with them in a day or so, good winds permitting. I’ll sell her and recover my money. De Locke’s crew are all in the hold. I intend to take the two natives to the pearl fisheries superintendent at Puttalam before we head to Nagakodi. They are both originally from Ceylon and will be well taken care of there.”

  “And Alexandre?” She remembered those dark eyes, his calmness in the face of her fearsome father, the heat that had tingled in her toes being so close to his damp body.

  “I am still deciding what to do with Alexandre.” He glanced away. “But I won’t harm him, if that was your next question.” Constance bit her lip. It was.

  Once again he met her eye, then, to her very great surprise, took her hand. “I am sorry if you are afraid of me, child. I have given you no just cause, and so I can only assume that you have somehow ignored my rules and mingled with the crew, overhearing some fragment of untruth that has grown nightmarish in your brain.”

  She swallowed hard. Nodded. She could see the effort it took him not to berate her.

  “What did you hear?” he asked, in a forcedly even tone.

  “That you were a pirate,” she whispered. “A long time ago.”

  He sighed. “I was never a pirate. I am a merchant seaman and have always been so. But . . .”

  Constance waited, breath suspended.

  “Shortly after your mother disappeared . . . I was not myself. My first run after the . . . event was to the Malabar Coast, to Cochin. I had a special charge from a very rich man, a cargo to pick up. Sixty crates of tea. He was willing to pay much higher than the East India Company, so I took the commission. But we had weeks of bad weather. Gales, squalls, then we were becalmed in the doldrums, on the equator, for sixteen days. I arrived at Cochin a month later than expected. Exhausted, still frantic about Faith, wondering if she had returned in my absence . . .” He paused, and Constance found that she was blinking back tears. “I was not in the mood for what happened.

  “A wily Portuguese captain had heard about the commission, about my failure to pick it up yet. He persuaded the local seller to let him take it. So my rich cargo was gone. The trip had been all for nothing. I gathered together an alternate cargo, small, low-paying items. Letters home to England by the sackful. And we made our way back. Then, near the Mascarene Islands, one of my crew spotted a Portuguese ship.”

  Father stopped and gazed off into the distance. He was silent a long time.

  Finally, Constance said, “Was it the ship that had taken your cargo?”

  Father shook his head, smiling ruefully. “No. Of course not. That ship was weeks ahead of us. This was simply a ship flying the Portuguese flag. I knew that, the crew knew that, and yet . . . and yet we wanted somebody to be punished for what had happened and there it was. . . .”

  He put his hand to his head, rubbing his eyebrow with the heel of his palm. “There it was.”

  He straightened, smoothed his waistcoat and nodded decisively. “It was regrettable. No man was injured—they were a much smaller vessel and surrendered quickly. We incarcerated the crew. I sent a man aboard to sail it alongside us to the nearest port. By this time, I realized my folly and set them all free, letting them keep their cargo. On my return to England I made a full confession to the Company and was ordered to pay reparation. They were lenient with me on account of my good record thus far and on account of the recent loss of my wife. I spent a month in prison, Constance, when you were little more than a babe.” He hung his head, and Constance realized he was ashamed. “You wouldn’t have noticed; you were used to my being away.”

  “Father, I’m so sorry.”

  There was a long quiet, when all she could hear was the sound of the waves splashing against the ribs of the ship. So the Irishman had not told the truth, but an exaggerated rumor. She felt foolish, ashamed. When Father spoke again, it was so softly that she barely heard him. “If your mother had died, Constance, it would have been easier.”

  It was true. Not knowing was the worst of it. “What do you think happened to her?” she asked, dreading the answer. In the distance, the boat had started its journey back to Good Bess. De Locke was gone.

  “I don’t know. But she was a strong woman. I know she could survive much hardship.”

  “Then why did she not come back?”

  “Perhaps she has no recollection of us. Or perhaps she is constrained somehow. We know she has been here, across the miles. If she has no money, no way to get home . . .” He shook his head. “There is no benefit in speculation. I will uncover all the clues I can and, God willing, bring her home with me.”

  “I want to help, too,” Constance said. “Will you let me help you, Father? I have a good brain. I don’t want to be stuck at home with Howlett’s daughter. I don’t—”

  “How do you know about Howlett’s daughter?”

  A rush of heat. Constance’s heart began to pound. “I . . . you must have told me.”

  “Indeed no, I did not tell you.”

  She forced a laugh. “Well, you must have, Father because I . . . I know of her.”

  “I deliberately made no mention of Orlanda because I was not c
ertain that she would be at home and did not want to raise your expectations of a companion.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Constance, did you read my letter to Violet?”

  She finally knew the true meaning of the word “speechless.” She literally could not speak.

  His temper, held in check for the entire conversation, finally escaped him. “I have clearly misjudged you. Here I am, treating you like an adult, when you are little more than a willful child.” He began to stride away from her.

  “Father, wait!”

  “No, Constance. No. I have business to take care of. I have spent enough time on you. We will be in Nagakodi within thirty-six hours. I will speak to you again then.”

  And he was gone.

  Constance left her cabin that evening, intending to go up on deck for her usual dose of fresh night air. But she stopped, uncomfortable at the thought of seeing Father again. And so minutes passed; paused in indecision outside her cabin, her thoughts turned to Alexandre. She wondered if Old Harry had brought him and his companions supper, whether he was comfortable, whether Father had decided to take him back to France. She couldn’t ask Father all these things, and Old Harry had maintained his silence with her.

  Would it be such a bad thing to ask Alexandre himself? The thought gave her a warm thrill, deep inside. Just that morning, he had stood—dripping wet—in her cabin. So close. Since then, she hadn’t seen him, and he had become almost like a storybook figure. Not real.

  She wavered. She was already in so much trouble with Father. . . . But then, he couldn’t be any angrier with her than he was now.

  Constance made her way down to the lower-deck hold. By the dim light, she saw him. His shoulder was turned to her, his knees to his chest, arms wrapped around them. The two Sinhalese men were talking softly to each other. Father had the three of them in the cattle pen, on fresh straw, cuffs of steel around their ankles. She felt a pang of embarrassment. Why must he chain them? They weren’t criminals. The smell of the hold was awful, and there was so little air that the candle could barely burn.