Lord Cuthburt's ship was the
Ricarda
, a stately vessel that proudly flew the British flag and held a crew of fifty stout men as well as a few women – a cook, maidservants, the captain's wife. Most were having a night ashore, leaving the shop moored at the docks.
In the cool darkness of the hour before sunrise, when the eastern horizon was touched with the faintest blush of rose, the deck was quiet. A sole watchman dozed by the mast, a lantern resting beside him.
Constance crept aboard, her heart hammering so that she was sure the noise of it would wake the sentry and indeed half the town. Every step caused her renewed pain as cloth scraped over the welts on her bottom. She had foregone her fancy gowns for the plainest and most sensible clothes in her wardrobe, pinned up her hair and covered it with a kerchief, and packed a small bag with other garments, jewelry, and what little money she possessed.
It had occurred to her that she might seek open passage from Lord Cuthburt. As a friend of her father's, he might have obliged. But then she shook her head at her own foolishness. She could not possibly tell him the entire circumstance of her wishing to leave Veradoga, and anything less would lead to him merely telling her she was being a silly and irresponsible girl.
Thus, she had to stow away. Over dinner, the genial lord had mentioned his plan to get an early start. She could only hope that her absence would go unnoticed until the
Ricarda
was well out to sea.
She stood on the deck with her bag in her arms, looking about and wondering where she could hide. She had never been on a ship before, not even to visit the nearest of the neighboring islands. Her father would not allow it. He held it as a certainty that she'd no sooner set foot on a ship than pirates would descend, seize her, and carry her off to sell to some harem in Madagascar when they had sated their lusts on her young body.
Little had he, or she, suspected that she'd find that fate lived out within the very walls of their home. What need was there of pirates when Robert was about? William deGranville had been so fixed on assuring that his daughter never shared her mother's fate, and look to what it had led.
Pirates, indeed. She'd sooner take her chances with pirates.
The very thought was enough to send a little thrill through her, one that she was ashamed to admit. She had been unhealthily fascinated ever since learning of Anna deGranville's time as a captive of the French pirate Philippe Merlion. The Black Falcon, the sailors called him, and to this day spoke of him in tones of fear and reverence.
What had it been like for her mother? Nearly two years had passed between the day her ship was taken and the day she was ransomed back to her frantic husband, all of this well before Constance was born. Two years in the hands of the Black Falcon.
Had he kept the blonde Englishwoman for his own use or given her to his savage crew? Constance preferred to think that Merlion had been so enchanted by her beauty that he'd claimed her as his own share of the prize. Would he have been gentle with her? Had her mother surrendered, and lain gasping her pleasure in the arms of the pirate? Had Anna grown to love her captor?
Many a night, she'd dreamed such things. She had envisioned herself as her mother, helpless to resist a dashing rogue with hair dark as the night and eyes like emeralds. He would be handsome, and clever, and buried beneath his cruel exterior would be a gentlemanly nature.
Those dreams had often stirred unknown longings in her loins. Even now, after Rob and Enrique, the ideas still held a power over her that made her go slightly breathless, and weak in the knees.
Constance knew the truth of it was likely far from her imaginings. Even the best-kept of sailors, like those on Lord Cuthburt's ship, were rough men with rough looks and rough manners.
She had to find a place to hide herself. Perhaps when the ship was well away from port, she could emerge and seek the aid of Lord Cuthburt. Perhaps he would take her to wherever her father might be rather than return her home.
The ship was grand and luxurious. Its aftcastle was a manor unto itself, with cabins and staterooms and servants' quarters. Constance explored quickly and quietly, mindful that someone else might be awake. She found a kitchen where Lord Cuthburt's meals were doubtless prepared, a pantry stocked with finer food than that in the sailors' galley below. At the rear of the pantry was a small storeroom. She made a little nest of a bed there, on empty sacks, and settled down to wait.
At some point, she slept. She would not have thought it possible, given the discomfort she was in, but her weariness and the remnants of whatever Rob had drugged her with soon outweighed the pain in her backside.
When she woke, the tiny room was rising and falling, dipping and swaying, in a manner that made Constance feel green with illness. She could hear the creak and groan of wood, the flap of canvas, the voices of men calling orders back and forth.
At sea! She was at sea, and away from Veradoga at last.
She'd had the foresight to bring water and a bit of food with her. She had, however, neglected to make any arrangements for private functions. That need became overwhelming.
Finally, knowing that if she did not find relief she'd soil herself, Constance inched the storeroom door open. She heard women in the kitchen, bustling about. One was scolding the other.
"—what you think you're to do, Daisy-me-girl. His Lordship won't let you stay on with your belly rising."
"I'll marry Walter, that's what I'll do," came the reply. It was a young girl's voice, Daisy, sounding no older than Constance herself.
"Walter, is it? So Walter's the one."
"Who else would it be?" Daisy retorted defensively.
"He, and you, should have known better. You know how His Lordship is about servant-girls and sailors. Frowns on it, he does."
"Uhh … I fear I'm to be sick again, Greta."
"Here's the basin."
There followed the sounds of retching, and Greta's unsympathetic clucking of the tongue.
"You'll have a sorry voyage, that you will. At least, God be praised, you can blame it on seasickness. I'll get you a bite of dry biscuit –"
The door to the pantry, ajar, now opened the rest of the way and a tiny woman came in. She was dressed almost as a man, in trousers that belled at the knee-length cuffs, and a white muslin shirt beneath a striped apron. She stopped short when she saw Constance, who had ducked back too slowly to avoid being discovered.
"Here, now!" she cried. She might have been tiny, no more than a bird, but she strode forward fearless as a lioness and confronted Constance. "Who are you, and what are you doing lurking about in there? Come here, girl."
Having nowhere else to go, Constance obeyed and emerged into the kitchen. "Please, madame cook, do not tell anyone I'm here."
"I'll be the one to decide about that." Greta looked her up and down. "Why … you're deGranville's daughter! His Lordship mentioned you'd grown up to be the very image of your mother. What's the meaning of this?"
