Mistress Below Deck. Helen Dickson

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      Tobias Searle went out and Rowena stood listening to his footsteps cross the hall. A door opened and closed and then there was silence. A stone had settled where her heart had been, and cold fury and an overwhelming disappointment dwelled where just a short time ago there had been hope.

      ‘What are we to do?’ she asked quietly, deeply concerned by Mr Searle’s visit, her resentment still running high. Her father rubbed his forehead with his fingers.

      ‘This is Jack Mason’s doing,’ he mumbled. ‘The man’s a damned menace.’

      ‘Mr Searle accuses you of setting light to his vessel. What really happened? Where were you?’

      ‘Ashore—at the offices of a merchant I’d traded with before, negotiating the purchase of a return cargo.’

      ‘And Jack Mason was on the Dolphin?’

      He nodded. ‘Due to bad weather we were blown off course and failed to pick up our intended cargo in Kingston. I wasn’t unduly concerned about the cargo we would be taking back because there were always plenty to choose from, but when we put in there was an unusually large number of merchantmen. On a suggestion from the merchant and a letter of introduction, I intended going on to Barbados to pick up a cargo of rum and sugar, but Mason was anxious to leave for home.

      ‘I wasn’t on board when the fire on the Night Hawk started and it didn’t occur to me until we were loaded with the cargo meant for the Night Hawk and had left Kingston that he’d been behind it. Under cover of darkness and away from the eyes of the harbour officials, he fired it, knowing there were men on board.’

      ‘Why did you go to the West Indies on that voyage? You’d only just returned from Gibraltar with the Rowena Jane.’

      ‘A lot of money would be changing hands on the voyage to the Indies. I felt it might be better if I were to carry out the negotiations. I didn’t entirely trust Mason and would have got rid of him before sailing, but it was too late to find another captain.’

      ‘When you found out what he’d done, why didn’t you turn back to Jamaica and hand him over to the officials there? Surely that would have been the right thing to do.’

      ‘Had I done that, I’d have had a mutiny on my hands. The crew weren’t for going back to a place where they might have been thrown into gaol. Besides, most of them were behind Mason that night.’

      ‘And how did you come to be shot?’

      ‘At a quayside tavern.’

      ‘Was that where Mr Searle found you?’ He nodded. ‘What happened to his crew was a terrible thing and Jack Mason should have been punished. You can hardly blame Mr Searle for seeking justice and compensation for those who were maimed, but I cannot condone his method of exacting revenge—if that’s what it was,’ she said, feeling a stirring of doubt since his denial.

      Rowena knew the rest, of how the Rowena Jane had put in at Antigua and found its owner alive but a cripple. Deeply affected by this latest turn of events, she spun on her heel and stalked to the door.

      ‘Now where are you off to?’

      ‘To see what has happened to Mr Whelan. You are right, Father. For me to marry well is the only way out of this mess. I’ll get Tobias Searle off our backs if it’s the last thing I do.’

      Unfortunately Mr Whelan didn’t arrive. According to Jane, who had watching from the window, he had been waylaid by the detestable Mr Searle as he approached the house; after they had spoken together, Mr Whelan had walked away.

      Rowena galloped along Falmouth Haven. As she reached higher ground, her dogs, two faithful companions she had reared from pups, raced ahead. They were young and fresh and relieved to be out of the stables, their sleek black shapes pouring over the ground and slipping in and out of the rocks.

      The wind ruffled her hair, tugging it loose from the ribbon. Away from the town she dismounted and left her horse free to nibble the short grass. Sitting on the grey-veined rocks, she clasped her arms around her drawn-up knees, one of the dogs settling beside her. The air was sweet, smelling of the spiky bushes of gorse and tasting of the sea.

      Her gaze did a sweep of Falmouth’s deep harbour beyond the quay. Being the most westerly mail-packet station, with ships stopping on their passage to the Mediterranean, the West Indies and North America and requiring provisions, Falmouth, with its flourishing and increasing trade, was a prosperous, bustling harbour town, full of rich merchants.

      As a merchant trader, her father’s prosperity СКАЧАТЬ