The Lost Gentleman. Margaret McPhee

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       Chapter Four

      Within his cabin Kit sat at his desk, the paperwork and ledgers and maps upon it forgotten for now. Gunner sat opposite him, leaning his chair back on to its hind two legs and rocking it. The afternoon sunlight was bright. Through the great stern window the ocean was clear and empty, the disabled Coyote long since left behind.

      There was a silence while Gunner mulled over what Kit had just told him of Kate Medhurst’s reaction up on deck earlier that day.

      ‘Women are the gentler sex. Their sensibilities are more finely honed than those of most men,’ said Gunner, ‘but...’ He screwed up his face.

      ‘One might have expected a degree of either fear or animosity towards the boatload of ruffians that took her by force and held her against her will,’ Kit finished for him.

      Gunner nodded. ‘It is possible she has an unusually meek nature.’

      I hope that pistol is loaded? Kate Medhurst had looked at the weapon like a woman seriously contemplating snatching it from its holster and holding it to his head.

      He thought of the essence of forbidden desire that whispered between the two of them, the barely veiled hostility in those eyes of hers and the way her body had responded so readily to his.

      He thought of her plunging from Raven’s head and swimming so purposefully towards those rocks. And of their interaction in his cabin, with her skilful deflection of his questions to reveal nothing of herself.

      ‘I would not describe Kate Medhurst as meek.’ Intelligent, determined, formidable, capable, mysterious, courageous and passionate, most definitely passionate. But not meek. ‘Would you?’

      ‘No,’ Gunner admitted.

      ‘Mrs Medhurst was not so unwilling a guest upon Coyote.’

      Gunner’s gaze met his. ‘You think she is lying about being abducted?’

      ‘She never told us she was abducted. We made that assumption. Mrs Medhurst did not correct it.’

      ‘But you saw how the pirates treated her.’

      ‘La Voile would have given her to us easily enough. The rest did not wish to yield her.’

      ‘She was afraid of them.’

      ‘She was afraid, but not of them...for them.’ He thought of the desperation that had driven her to grab his wrist, to plead for the lives of those men. ‘There is someone on Coyote that she cares for, very much.’

      ‘A lover.’

      Kit thought of the way Kate Medhurst touched so often to the gold wedding band upon her finger. ‘Or a husband.’

      Gunner looked at him in silence for a moment. ‘You think it was not La Voile’s body his crew were intent on retrieving. You think it was the woman.’

      ‘It would explain much.’

      ‘But not what we saw between her and La Voile on Coyote’s deck that morning.’

      ‘Does it not? If we remove our assumptions, what did we see, Gabriel?’ Kit asked.

      ‘An argument between two men over a woman,’ Gunner said slowly. ‘The other pirate...’

      ‘It is a possibility.’

      ‘The only fly in the ointment is her mourning weeds.’

      ‘Are they mourning weeds? A ship that flies a black sail is not in mourning.’

      Gunner looked at him and said slowly, ‘A pirate’s woman might dress as a pirate.’

      Kit said nothing.

      ‘And if she is a pirate’s woman?’ Gunner asked.

      ‘It makes no difference. As long as we have La Voile’s body she is not our concern. We offload her in Antigua in the morning. Let them ship her back to Louisiana. We have bigger things to think of.’ Like getting La Voile’s body back to London. Like returning to face what he had left behind. ‘Post a guard on La Voile’s body in the meantime.’

      ‘You think she is capable of sabotage?’

      ‘I think we should not underestimate Kate Medhurst. I will breathe easier when she is gone.’ And he would. Because every time he thought of her, he felt desire stir through his body. She was temptation, to a life he had long left behind, to a man he no longer was. And that was a road Kit had no intention of revisiting.

      * * *

      The purple-grey-green silhouette of Antigua loomed large before them. The haze of the early morning would burn off as the day progressed, but for now the sun sat behind a shroud that did not mask the brightness from the daylight. Within the rowing boat there was no sound other than the rhythmic creak and dip of the oars and their pull of the water. No one in Raven’s small party spoke.

      The wind that was usually so mercifully cooling seemed unwelcome at this hour with the lack of sun, making Kate’s skin goosepimple beneath the thin black muslin. Or maybe it was just the sight of North in his place at the other end of the boat.

      His eyes were sharp as the raven’s perched upon his shoulder and strayed her way too often, making her remember the lean strength in his body, and the scent of him, and the feel of his skin against hers...and the way he had stroked the hair from her cheek. Making her feel things she had never thought to feel again; things that appalled her to feel for him of all men. And she was gladder than ever that this was the end of her journey with him.

      But there was a small traitorous part of her that, now she was safe, wondered what might have happened between them were it not the end. Just the thought turned her cold with shame and guilt. She pushed it away, denying its existence, as much as she denied the tension between them was not all adversarial. And turned her mind to wondering as to her crew and Coyote’s fate.

      North was right, these waters were rife with Baratarian pirates and privateers; one of Jean Lafitte’s boys had probably already found and helped the stricken ship. Sunny Jim knew what he was doing and would get them all back safe to Tallaholm, and she felt better at that thought.

      * * *

      ‘Something is not right,’ Kit said softly to Gunner as they stood before Fort Berkeley on the island not so much later. Jones the Purser and five ordinary seamen who had rowed across with them had stayed in the main town, St John’s, to procure water and the list of required victuals. Kate Medhurst stood just in front of him, surveying the yellow-washed walls of the fort that guarded the entrance to English Harbour. She was more relaxed than he had seen her, now that they СКАЧАТЬ