Burning Bright (41 page)

“I—I admit nothing.”

“You
understand
nothing, Mr. Livingston.” Elinor raised herself on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. “We both know what you have done. What you fail to grasp is that I now have nothing left to lose. There is nothing more society can do to me. I am free, Mr. Livingston, free from fear, and I have you to thank for it.”

“You’re mad.”

“What, because I can thank you for ruining me? Perhaps. But I think I am sane. Shall we ask Captain Ramsay to decide for us?”

Now Livingston looked a little afraid. “This has nothing to do with him.”

“It does, though. You see, my father intended to take me back to London, which would have deprived the captain of a powerful weapon he has taken some pains to reclaim. I think if he knew you were responsible for that state of affairs, he would be angry. And I think he would be interested in turning that anger on you.”

“He can do nothing to me.”

“Oh, come now, Lieutenant, we both know that is not true. I think you have given him cause to finally rid himself of you. I wonder how happy your father will be to find you have destroyed your career?”

Livingston grabbed her by the arm, exactly as her father had done that morning. “You will say
nothing
of this—”

Elinor brought her other hand around, blazing, and grabbed his wrist, making him cry out with pain and release her. “You forget yourself,” she said coldly. “Touch me again and you will receive worse.”

Again unconsciously mimicking her father, Livingston clutched his injured arm to his chest. “Don’t tell him,” he said, breathing heavily. “My father—I’ll do anything—”

“Stop belittling Captain Ramsay,” Elinor said. “Humble yourself and make it clear he has your respect and obedience. No more sneering or speaking ill of him behind his back.
Athena
is my home, Lieutenant, and you are trying to tear her apart. Start behaving like a man instead of a spoiled child, and I will say nothing to anyone. Continue as you have done, and the captain learns of your…indiscretion. Do we have an understanding?”

Livingston nodded rapidly. “I beg your pardon,” he began.

“Please do not apologize to me,” Elinor said, “for what you have done. I truly am grateful not to have this beam hanging above my head. Thank you.”

She went back down the companionway, feeling strangely afloat. So few hours had passed since she entered Admiralty House that morning, and yet how much had happened, how many burdens had fallen from her back. Livingston was nothing compared to Durrant, who was nothing compared to her father, and she had faced all three and won, though she thought Livingston’s change of heart would not last forever. Even so, it was a victory. Elinor plucked at her skirt. He would never know it, but she had repaid Ramsay’s gift in her own way.

Fitzgerald opened the door to the great cabin just as she had her hand on the knob. “Excuse me, Miss Pembroke,” he said, and held the door for her before hurrying off. Ramsay, Beaumont, and Brown were all leaning over the table, intent on the map.

“Have you learned something, gentlemen?” she asked.

“Probably,” said Ramsay. “Beaumont Spoke to Westin at Port de Paix minutes ago. No unknown ships have passed there in the last twenty-four hours.” He was smiling.

“You seem excited about what does not sound like good news. Do you not want the Speakers to observe Evans’ ships?”

“It’s as important what they
don’t
see. Gentlemen, if you’d join us?” He said this last to Fitzgerald and Livingston, who jostled each other trying to enter the room at the same time. Elinor found herself wedged between Ramsay and Brown, looking down at the colorful map.

“Port de Paix is here, on the coast of Saint-Domingue,” Ramsay said, pointing. “This is Mole Saint Nicolas here, to the west. Evans’ ship was seen off that point, going east, which put him along the northern coast, and that would mean he’d have passed Port de Paix before midmorning today. Except Westin says they haven’t seen it.”

The other men all exchanged glances. “I feel there is something I am missing,” Elinor said.

“If the pirate ship didn’t pass Port de Paix, there’s only one place it could be going,” Ramsay said. He pointed at a spot on the map Elinor had thought was a smudge. “They’re on Tortuga.”

In which there is a great deal of planning

beg your pardon, but they could still have gone around the northern side of the island to stay out of sight of Port de Paix, sir,” Livingston said, deliberately not looking at Elinor.

Ramsay opened his mouth to reply, gave Livingston a suspicious look, and said, “There are two more observation points, at Fort St. Louis and Le Cap, but Mr. Beaumont doesn’t know anyone there. We’ll have to wait until morning to see what Admiralty House can tell us. I hate waiting on this.”

“The pirates probably aren’t going anywhere,” Fitzgerald pointed out.

“With an Extraordinary Seer as their leader?” Ramsay said. “Every minute that passes is a minute in which he might See what we’re planning.”

“I beg your pardon, gentlemen, but what does this mean?” Elinor said. “Surely we must have more concrete proof than this, which is—I beg your pardon—based on reasoning and not on direct evidence. Not that I mean to belittle your work, and I am certainly convinced of your conclusions, but I daresay Admiral Durrant will not launch an offensive without more facts than this.”

“He’ll want visual confirmation,” agreed Beaumont, “and honestly, it’s going to take some doing to prove they’re on Tortuga.”

All the men nodded or murmured in agreement. Elinor said, “I am afraid I don’t understand. I thought Tortuga was a notorious pirate stronghold.”

“Emphasis on ‘was,’ “ said Fitzgerald. “Tortuga’s buccaneers were cleaned out by the end of the seventeenth century. It’s all plantation owners and farmers now. France made sure that was all it would ever be, since they were afraid it might be a rallying point for the upsurge in piratical activity after Evans appeared. But now that it’s owned by the freemen of Saint-Domingue…could be the Tortugan land owners saw a benefit to providing a sanctum to Evans’ men.”

“I don’t know,” Livingston said, “The rebel unrest might have spilled over into greater lawlessness, true, but I think Port de Paix would have noticed that kind of traffic. Tortuga’s harbor is almost directly opposite it.”

“Could the pirates be using a different harbor?” Elinor asked.

“Nothing else there,” said Brown, who had been frowning over the map as if plotting a course for
Athena
. “North shore’s rocky right down to the waterline. No place for even a sloop to dock, let alone a handful of warships.”

“But he could make a harbor, could he not?”

All the men except Ramsay, who had gone to stand by the window, stared at her as if they were trying not to give in to hoots of derision. “Miss Pembroke, it’s not as simple as digging a hole in the sand,” Beaumont said, kindly enough that Elinor was irritated until she remembered they had not been privy to her conversation with Ramsay about the pirate cove.

“I forget you gentlemen did not see what I did,” she said, and briefly explained what she had observed on her island. Their looks of carefully concealed disbelief melted into surprise.

“That sounds impossible—not to contradict you, Miss Pembroke, it’s simply hard to imagine how many Movers one would have to have to do such a thing,” Fitzgerald said. “Cracking the stone alone would be…it’s simply mind-boggling.”

“I agree,” Elinor said. “But I heard the pirates refer to Evans sending his Movers to apprehend Dewdney, and I infer he must have many if he expects them to shepherd an Extraordinary Scorcher back to the fold, let alone capture one. And we have no idea how many years ago he might have begun excavation. It might be a stronghold of long standing.”

“They have an Extraordinary Scorcher?” Livingston exclaimed, then snapped his mouth shut tight as if he had remembered he was afraid to speak to Elinor.

“I think there is much the captain and I have failed to share with you,” Elinor said, glancing at Ramsay for permission, but he continued to stare out the windows toward the dock, so she related the rest of the details of her time on the island, leaving out her terrifying flight and the night spent huddled in the crevice.

Fitzgerald sat down heavily in his chair before she was halfway finished. Beaumont and Livingston stared at her, the first in amazement, the second in a kind of frightened awe. Brown continued his study of the map, apparently not heeding her, but when she finished, he said, “Always knew you were a Navy man at heart,” which made Elinor smile and blush.

“An Extraordinary Scorcher. An army of Movers, some of whom might be Extraordinaries themselves. And who knows what the hell—I beg your pardon, Captain—who knows what else he might have,” said Livingston. “And that’s all after we dig him out of his man-made, probably fortified harbor.
And
we’ll likely have to fight off his ships before we can even get to that point. I apologize for being so pessimistic, but this doesn’t look easy. The one advantage we have is that he doesn’t have any Bounders, and that seems almost too lucky.”

“Talent’s not evenly distributed,” Brown said. “We’ve almost no Scorchers but a grundle of Speakers. Not impossible that Evans don’t have many Bounders.”

“Let’s hope that’s still true when it comes to an attack,” said Livingston.

“If we can get Admiral Durrant to agree to an attack—he’s a good strategist,” Fitzgerald said.

“Good with sea battles. I doubt he’s ever planned an assault on a fortified position.”

“Mr. Livingston,” Elinor said, causing Livingston to jerk with surprise, “why are you certain Evans will have fortified his stronghold? I saw no fortifications in the one I observed.”

“Oh. Ah, Miss Pembroke, you—and I mean no disrespect to your observational powers—you probably wouldn’t have,” Livingston said. He seemed to be growing used to the idea that she was not going to start hurling accusations at him. “They would have been higher than the shoreline and likely concealed. You said there was a cliff, correct? The best location for an emplacement would be somewhere defensible like that. If he had enough Movers to carve that cliff side, he’d have enough to build stone emplacements and set some large cannons into them.

“And a shore-based battery is deadly to ships—they can find their range easily without having to compensate for the movement of the deck, not to mention supporting larger cannons that have a greater range than ours do.”

“You terrify me, Mr. Livingston.” Elinor felt faint at the idea of
Athena
coming under fire like that. “How does anyone defend against such things?”

“Brute force,” said Fitzgerald. “Or a raiding party to take out the cannons from the shore side.”

“That is what I have been thinking,” Elinor said. “I do not see why I should not find my way there and set—”

“You will not be mounting any one-woman raids, Miss Pembroke,” Ramsay said, still looking out the window.

“But I assure you—”

He turned to face her, and there was no humor in those blue eyes. “
It will not happen
, do you understand me? Even you can’t burn stone, and if you encounter that Dewdney, you will be far too busy fighting him to do us any good. So stop considering it. There’s no point in planning an assault strategy when we don’t know what we’re facing.