Chapter Five
SWEAT was trickling down the back of Alexander’s neck, mixing with the thick powder of the wig and making an itchy paste. He longed to pull the thing off and scratch, but he kept his languid position of sprawling across the hard sofa in Abigail Wentworth’s parlor.
“And he’s tall and very handsome,” Abby was saying as she sat dreamily looking out the window, her big brown eyes almost turning to liquid.
“I thought he wore a mask.” Alex was playing with the plume from his hat. Yesterday morning he’d taken the opportunity, while Pitman was at breakfast, to search the man’s office. He’d found a letter from an admiral of His Majesty’s navy thanking Pitman for confiscating the Mermaid, Josiah Greene’s ship, and saying that Pitman’s share of the profits from the sale would be arriving on the Golden Hind. This morning Alex had heard that the Golden Hind had been sighted and would be in Warbrooke tonight.
“Well, of course he wore a mask,” Abigail was saying. “But a woman knows these things. He was extraordinarily handsome.”
“Not like anyone in Warbrooke?” Alex asked, looking at her over the feather. All he had to do was figure out how to hide on the ship, take the money away from the king’s representative and escape without shedding any blood—particularly his own.
“Of course there’s no one in Warbrooke like the Raider. I’ve lived here all my life and there’s no one as graceful as the Raider, no one as tall, no one as brave. He’s the most—”
Alex didn’t listen to the rest. In the week since the raid, Abigail had set herself up as the authority on the Raider—and her big mouth was making it more difficult for Alex to appear as the Raider again. Pitman didn’t like that he had lost a battle to a cocky masked man and no one in town dared remind him of his loss—except Abigail that is. It seemed all she was capable of talking about. For two days after the raid she was the town’s center of attention, since everyone wanted to hear her impressions of this man. But by the fourth day, people were thinking once again about putting food on the table and clothes on their backs. Everyone except Abigail, that is. She still talked of nothing except the Raider.
Alex had decided to take Nick’s advice and spend some time with pretty little Abigail, but as far as he could tell, Abby hadn’t yet noticed him. The only man she thought of was the Raider.
“Believe me, I know what he looks like.”
“Jessica Taggert said he had a cruel-looking mouth.”
Abigail stood, her plump bosom heaving in anger. “What does the likes of a Taggert know? You saw what the Raider thought of her, didn’t you? I’ve always thought she needed a bath.”
Alex opened his mouth to say that maybe the Raider had been angered because he’d wanted so much to kiss Jessica and she’d refused him. But he wasn’t really interested in Abigail’s answer enough to bother to comment. What he most wanted to do was go to Ghost Island, shed his hot clothes and dive into the cold saltwater of the sea. And he needed to plan how he was going to relieve Pitman of his ill-gotten money.
Politely, he excused himself from Mistress Abigail and went outside to the busy main street of Warbrooke. He felt drawn to the cool breezes from the ocean and started walking that way. A couple of strangers in town stopped to gawk at him. Today he was wearing his royal blue satin outfit, the waistcoat embroidered with green and yellow silk flowers. Nick had sent his entourage of servants to New Sussex to bring back more of his fat cousin’s clothes, so now Alex had several gaudily-colored garments as well as four enormous, and hated, wigs from which to choose.
The first thing he saw was Jessica’s old tub, the Mary Catherine, tied at the wharf. Warbrooke had the deepest harbor on the American coast and even large ships could sail in quite close.
“Ahoy, Alex!” Jessica called down to him. She was in the rigging of the boat’s tallest sail, trying her best to patch rotten and broken ropes. “Been courting?”
A couple of sailors behind him laughed as they looked Alex up and down.
“And who have you been courting?” Alex called back, referring to her male garments. He was pleased to hear the sailors laugh even harder before they moved on.
Jessica grinned and clambered down the rigging. “Come on board,” she called, “but mind your pretty clothes, there’s tar and nails about.”
The boat Jess owned was even more derelict when seen at close view than from afar. It was a tiny thing with only two sails, but even at that, he wondered how she sailed it alone. The anchor must weigh two hundred pounds at least.
Below, down the narrow stairs and corridor and into the single cabin, he smelled every f
ish the boat had ever taken on. For the first time, he used his scented handkerchief for real.
“Too much for you?” Jessica asked, grinning.
He tested one of the two chairs for sturdiness, then sat in it. “How do you stand this tub?”
Some of the light went out of her eyes. “I’m a Taggert, remember?”
“True, and no doubt that means you can’t smell anything.”
Jessica laughed. “Maybe it is a little difficult to take. I have some rum. Would you like a tot?”
“After an afternoon with Mistress Abigail, I need a hogshead.”
“The town’s prettiest girl? The love of the Raider’s life?”
Alex groaned. “Don’t mention that man to me. After all Abby had to say, I hope I never hear of him again.”