Jess smiled at the thought. “I’ll use Mrs. Coffin’s clothesline for the noose. Now go to sleep.” She was still smiling as she climbed into bed with baby Samuel and Eleanor.
* * *
Jessica slammed her shovel into the rocky beach, grabbed a clam, then threw it at the basket.
“They aren’t your enemy, you know.”
She looked up to see Alexander Montgomery standing there, the yellow silk of his coat flashing in the sunlight.
“Have you come to laugh at me, too?” She glared at him with great hostility. “This morning wasn’t enough for all of you? You have to sneak up on me so you can privately laugh at me?” She pulled another clam from its hiding place in the sand. She’d done her best to survive the morning but it hadn’t been easy. As soon as she walked into the common room at the Montgomery house, everyone had doubled over with laughter. The men were a storehouse of wash day jokes, with Mr. Coffin laughing the loudest.
A sleepy-looking Alexander had come into the room and they’d all rushed to tell him of the fabulous exploits of this courageous hero, this Raider. According to the townsmen, the Raider was extremely tall (over six feet), handsome (“he certainly made little Abigail Wentworth swoon”) and an excellent swordsman. Jessica could, of course, have kept her mouth shut, but she couldn’t resist pointing out the fact that the Raider had never so much as drawn his sword, much less demonstrated his skill with it. That had returned their attention to her. They had said she didn’t appreciate the fact that this man was risking his life to help others.
Jessica had grabbed the basket and shovel Eleanor used for digging clams and run to her private beach. Now Alexander had come here to ruin her solitude.
“I don’t need you to laugh at me,” she said, hands on hips.
Alex sat down on a tree that had fallen across the beach. “I didn’t come to laugh. I just wanted to say I don’t think you deserved what happened to you yesterday. I think the Raider was wrong.”
Jessica kept glaring for a moment, then closed her mouth and attacked another clam hole. “You came down here and risked getting your pretty clothes dirty to tell me that? Why? What do you want from me? Twenty-five percent of what I earn?”
Alex’s voice was very calm when he answered. “I know what it’s like to have the whole town laugh at you for something you can’t help.”
Jess looked at him and remembered all too well how she’d made the town laugh at him when he’d returned to Warbrooke. Her cheeks flushed red and she dug for another clam. “I’m sorry about that. Maybe I was a little too zealous. But everyone said that one of the Montgomery boys was going to come back and fix everything. I thought it was a ridiculous idea and when I saw you—” She stopped as she looked at his face. “I’m sorry I laughed.”
She continued digging clams but without as much anger.
“Do you really like my tailor?” Alex asked. “I could have him run something up for you. Maybe something in blue to go with your hair.”
Jess started to make a sharp retort but as she looked at his smiling face, she began to smile, too. “How many clams would I have to dig to pay for a blue silk dress?”
“It would cost you more than clams. It would cost you friendship. All you have to do is stop inciting the town to ridicule me and I’ll buy you the dress.”
“Oh.” A wave of guilt washed over Jessica. She hadn’t thought how Alexander felt being the butt of all the jokes—but now she knew the feeling all too well. “Please don’t buy me a dress,” she said, looking down toward her shovel.
“Then we can be friends?”
“I…I guess so.”
There was a pause and she glanced at Alexander to see that he was smiling. He wasn’t a bad-looking man, although much of his face was hidden beneath the big powdered wig. No doubt that snobby servant of his shaved Alex’s head every morning. Of course his clothing and that belly of his were preposterous. Even Abigail, who liked almost any man and especially rich single men, ignored Alexander.
Alex, with a smile of contentment, removed his satin jacket, stretched out on the log, his big belly standing up like a piece of whale fat floating on the sea. “Tell me what you thought of the Raider.”
Jessica was thoughtful a moment. “He likes glory. Why else would he ride through the middle of town for everyone to see him?”
“Perhaps that was the idea. Maybe he wanted everyone’s attention on him so Ben could remove the tea. You heard, didn’t you, that they’re gone? Ben, his wife and all four kids left in the middle of the night. Don’t you think the Raider gave them that chance to escape Pitman?”
“Don’t mention that man’s name to me! You who take money from him!”
As she walked by him, he caught her wrist, encircling it with his fingers but not squeezing. “Did it ever occur to you that if I take twenty-five percent of my esteemed brother-in-law’s profits, then I will know how much he’s earning? And as a partner of sorts, I can look over his books. I might, if he begins to trust me, find out whose ship he’s planning to take next.” He released her wrist.
“No, I never thought of that.”
Alex put his hands under his head. “Do think about it.”
Jess put clams in the basket and looked up at him out of the corner of her eye. His fat thighs were straining against the yellow satin breeches and his belly was about to pop two buttons.
“It doesn’t matter about this Raider, he won’t have courage enough to reappear. Pitman’s on to him.”
“And of course you’re sure Pitman’s smarter than the Raider.”
It was difficult for her to consider the Raider in any terms but hatred after what he’d done to her. “He’s a glory-seeking braggart and I hope I never see him again.”
“You have no idea who he is? After all, you were very close to him.”
“No idea at all, but I’m sure I’d recognize him if I saw him again. He has a very cruel-looking mouth. Oh no!” she gasped, looking out to sea. She had spread one of her two precious fishing nets on a rock to dry and now one of the many lobsters that the tide had lifted out was carrying it away. She made a grab, missed, then ran into the sea.
Alex was off his log in seconds. He caught himself just as he started after her. He had to remain in character. “Jessica, are you planning to swim to China after that net?”
She stopped, waist deep in the icy water, and watched the net float away from land. “I think I can get it if I could get down that rock ledge.” She gave Alex an appraising look. “Could you hold my feet so I can hang over the side?”
Alex nodded, keeping his eyes raised, not looking down at her dampened shirt clinging to her breasts. “I think I could manage.”
“I’m awfully heavy.”
He wiped his sweating palms on his padded thighs. “Let’s try it.”
Jess stretched out on the grass, using her arms to support her half way over the rock ledge.
Alex stood over her. The baggy sailor’s pants were clinging to her thighs and showing every curve of her lovely little fanny.
“Alex!” Jess said impatiently. “Are you going to hold me or not?”
“I will,” Alex said in a subdued voice, then took her ankles and lifted her so she could hang over the side of the ledge.
“Just a little more,” Jess said, stretching to reach the net. “Got it. You can pull me up now.”
Quite easily, Alex pulled her up, being careful not to let her body touch the rough rocks. He dropped her feet when her head was on flat land.
Jess lay still for a moment while she examined the net. “No new tears, I’m thankful for that.” Lithely, she got to her feet. “Alex, you look a little pale. I think I was too heavy for you. Sit down and rest.”
Alex did as she bid.
“I’ll get the clams and walk you back. A man of your…physique shouldn’t have exerted himself like that.” She ran down the little bank and picked up the basket of clams and when she returned, Alex was still sitting on the rock, his face white, his forehead sw
eaty. Poor man, she thought, he isn’t used to exercise. She extended her arm to him. “Lean on me, I’ll help you. We’ll go back to your father’s house and Eleanor will brew you a cup of tea—legal, expensive tea,” she added, smiling and patting his hand that was on her arm. “Eleanor will help you recover.”
* * *
“She thinks I’m ninety years old!” Alexander said to Nicholas, through his clenched teeth as he brushed the big stallion.
They were on a piece of land off the coast of the Warbrooke harbor, a tiny rocky island good for nothing but the breeding of mosquitoes and black flies. Eighteen years ago a ship had gone aground on the island’s south coast during a hideous winter storm and all hands had died. One man had been found the next morning frozen to the top of the main mast, a lantern in his hand. People said that for days a light could be seen wandering about the island, but upon investigation, no one was to be found. Someone called it Ghost Island and everyone kept away from it. It was the perfect place to hide the Raider’s horse and gear.
“She stands in front of me wearing wet clothes that stick to her heavenly little body, then lies down on the ground and crawls around so that her backside—sorry,” he said to the horse when he brushed too hard. “What does she think I’m made of?”
“About two hundred and fifty pounds of fat.”
“Fat doesn’t make me less of a man,” Alex said. He was wearing only breeches that clung to his big, muscular thighs. The sun was warming and browning the skin of his broad back.
“Then maybe it’s the wig,” Nick said, his eyes smiling. “Or maybe the satin. Or perhaps it’s the lazy way you walk or the fact that you do nothing all day except read and eat. Or it could be the slightly whining tone in your voice.”
Alex opened his mouth to speak but closed it again as he brushed the horse even harder. “I’m not that good of an actor. She should see that I…that I…”
“That you lust after her?”
“Jessica Taggert? Not on your life! Why should I expect anything from any of the Taggerts? There isn’t a brain in any of them except Eleanor.”
“But it wasn’t Jessica’s brain you were lusting after, was it?”
“I only brought this up to show you the stupidity of the woman. She said she’d recognize the Raider, that he had a cruel-looking mouth, but there I was right in front of her. Let’s not talk about her. Did you see that little Abigail Wentworth when I kissed her? Now she’s a woman a man could spend some time with.”
“If a man wanted to be bored to death two years after the marriage,” Nick said, yawning. “You’d have to create entertainments for her. What would you do when she got bored with the Raider? Dress as a devil for two years? Then what?”
“Abigail recognized what the Raider was doing. He was risking his life to save someone else. Jessica didn’t see that at all.”
“Perhaps she had too much dirty water in her eyes to see much.”
Alex winced. “I apologized to her for that. At least I did the best I could. I certainly wouldn’t have sought out a brainless, aggressive woman like Jessica if I hadn’t had a reason.”
“Makes perfect sense to me. Check his right foreleg,” Nick said, lazily giving Alex orders in the way only a Russian grand duke could. “Maybe Alex should seek out Mistress Wentworth and leave Mistress Taggert alone.”
“Good idea,” Alex said, returning to his brushing.
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.”
Jessica poured two wooden mugs half full of rum. “Don’t tell Eleanor,” she said, smiling.
Alex took a drink and then grimaced. “I see why the smell doesn’t bother you. A few swigs of this and your nose falls off.”
Jess sat down, one foot in the chair, the other propped on the knob of a cabinet door. It was a masculine stance, but Jessica’s body made it very unmasculine. Her breasts were outlined by the full shirt, and the pants wrapped themselves about her thighs—just exactly what Alex imagined his hands doing. He leaned back in his chair.
“So what is Pitman up to?” Jess asked, cradling her mug of rum, letting the liquid seep into her bones. A moment of rest like this and someone to share her precious rum with was pure pleasure. None of the women would have anything to do with her, and the men either treated her like a disease or they thought she lacked virtue and attacked her. Sitting with Alex who had no physical interest in her was a rare treat, rather like having a special friend.
“Jess, how would you get in touch with this Raider?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I have some information he might be interested in.” He proceeded to tell her of the money arriving for Pitman. If the Raider appeared with this knowledge that could only have been obtained by searching Pitman’s private papers, Alex was afraid Jessica might guess who had found that information.