DARE THE WILD WIND (44 page)

"No man can be rich enough in the
New World," he told her flatly.  "Slaving is legal and respectable, even in England.  What I'm doing is no different from what His Majesty intended for me.  What do you think I'd have been in the Colonies if there hadn't been a mutiny aboard the
Providence
?
"

Brenna stared back at him in silence.  Despite all he said, there was a difference. 
Cam would have spent seven years as an indentured servant in America, but once his sentence was served, he would have been released.  The Africans aboard the
Red Witch
would never again be free.  But she could see from Cam's face no effort to shame him could sway him from his course. 

"Should we pray the blacks won't mutiny aboard the
Red Witch
?" she asked, a tart uneasy edge in her voice
.

"Aboard the
Providence
, they didn't keep us in chains," Cam said succinctly.  "And if our cargo does try to break out of the hold, we have the powder and shot to put any mutiny down."

Chapter 24

At last,
Cap  Haitien
lay before them.  Beside Cam on deck, Brenna was herself again, in a blooming health that mocked her heavy heart.  Not even the prospect of setting foot on solid earth could cheer her.  She had lost Drake's child, and guilt was still a dull ache inside her.  And she was all too aware Cam couldn't be held at arm's length much longer.
 

Brenna had scanned the horizon since they made landfall, and the smoke
blue shape of Hispaniola rose from the shining turquoise mirror of the sea.  Emerging from misty silhouette to high rugged mountains and deep shadowed valleys, it was impossibly green, with blinding white beaches spreading lace edged skirts at its feet.

A jewel
box of a town climbed the winding, terraced streets above the docks, its mansard roofed houses improbably topped by the ragged heads of palm trees.  Exotic flowers spilled over every wall, crimson and coral and white, their heady perfume borne over the water even above the fishy reek of the waterfront.
 

Cap
  Haitien
was a thriving port.  Below the deck of the
Red Witch
, black men, feet and chests bare, shouldered goods from another ship, and piles of hides and logwood crowded for space on the wharf, next to sacks of cocoa beans and coffee and barrels of honey.
 

"It's hardly
London," Cam told her, "but the French
colons
pride themselves on their civilized amusements.  The planters on the island import every luxury from Paris, and when you  meet them, you'll agree they're a long way from provincial."     
 

Brenna had no desire to meet the planters who would bid for their cargo.
 

Crouched elbow
to elbow without room to stretch or stand, chained row on row together on crude wooden platforms that served as their berths, almost four hundred slaves had made the transatlantic passage in the brigantine's airless hold.  The guarded hatchway their only shaft of light, a cat o' nine tails their only instruction in a tongue they didn't speak, they had died despite the absence of the epidemic Bartholomew Fletcher feared in such close quarters.
 

When Brenna had grown strong enough for a daily walk on deck, she had watched the crew carry body after body to the rail on planks and tip them unceremoniously into the sea.  Nearly a third of the human cargo aboard
the
Red Witch
had perished before they made port in Saint Domingue.
 

"
Plantation society is a constant round of balls and dinners," Cam went on, "but when you tire of music and company, you can retreat to your own private Eden.
"

"Can it really be a paradise when it's built on the backs of slaves?" Brenna challenged.
 

Cam
ignored the edge to her question.   "Plantations can't run without labor," he told her with the patience of a tutor dealing with a fractious child.  "Everyone at Lochmarnoch would have starved if your clansmen hadn't owed your father their service.
"

"
They weren't prisoners," Brenna reminded him, "and they knew my father would take care of them."

"Any sensible master takes care of his slaves."  The gangplank thumped in place on the dock, and
Cam signaled to a mulatto hawking his services on the wharf.  He brushed a strand of Brenna's windblown hair back from her face, and smiled down at her, as if to say he didn't want to spoil the day with a quarrel.

"There are carriages for rent just beyond the quay.  And the first order of business in
Cap  Haitien
is comfortable lodging and a seamstress worth her hire."

Despite careful sponging and airing, her single gown was crushed and bedraggled from wear, and Brenna was grateful for his offer to add to her wardrobe.  But she couldn't pretend to rejoice at the end of this journey, any more than she could understand his indifference to the lives lost on the voyage.

Cam
had insisted it was inevitable.  "The poor beggars can't stand confinement. Most of them have never known more than a grass roof over their heads.  Some of them sicken and die, no matter what we do."

How could it be so easy for him to dismiss any responsibility for what befell his captives in the hold?  What had become of the laughing, generous boy she had grown up with?  Had the Rising and his brush with the hangman changed him so much?  Had he killed so many men it no longer mattered? 

Brenna knew
Cam had suffered a terrible and personal defeat.  The English had robbed him of his home and his title, and very nearly his life.  But how could that make him blind to anyone's misfortune but his own?

Once she would have staked her life on his honor.  Now she only had her own.

While she still was an invalid, there had been no question of
Cam coming to her bed.  Once she fully recovered, the voyage was almost at an end.  And her prickly temper had discouraged any overtures from Cam till now.  But she sensed his gallantry was wearing thin. 

Cam
clearly thought now that they had reached
Cap  Haitien
, she would forget how he had abducted her.  That she would forget everything but this lush flower scented island, and him.

The carriage they hired threaded its way past an outdoor  market where black women in brilliant kerchiefs balanced straw
berries and cakes on trays on their heads, and the air was filled with the smell of raw, fresh cut cane.  The aroma of spiced meats searing over open braziers tantalized Brenna, and silvery fish and a rainbow of wares heaped the crowded stalls, mangos and guavas, oranges and apricots, nutmeg and avocados, and to Brenna's surprise the lowly turnip, the staple of every stew in Scotland.

Cam
took separate rooms for them at a luxuriously appointed
pension
just off the main boulevard.  And kept his word to send for a seamstress.  She quickly took Brenna's measurements and promised the first of the gowns the next day, with the help of her two assistants. When she took her leave, Cam followed suit, pleading business.   

"For now, I'll beat a retreat, and let you indulge in a hot bath before we go down to supper..  Tomorrow, when you're properly outfitted, I'll present you to
Cap  Haitien's
leading citizens." 

He laughed at Brenna's surprise.  "In a French colony, I'm by no means a renegade.  And I can't think of anything I'd rather do than show you off to
Creole society."

Brenna was tempted by the lure of a steaming tub, and with Tad stationed outside her door, ostensibly to escort her wherever she wanted to go, two things were clear. 
Cam still didn't entirely trust her, and she wouldn't be able to make a quick escape.

She sank with more pleasure than she had a right to into the first hot bath she had taken since
England, trying to console herself with the prospect of aid from another quarter.

Cam
's promise of an introduction into Saint Domingue society might prove a stroke of luck.  He couldn't eavesdrop on her every word in polite company, and Tad couldn't hover at her heels in a drawing room.  Brenna had to seek out a confidant, someone she could trust to help her find passage back to England.

They dined alone that night, but the next day Brenna discover
ed that far from being regarded as a brigand or a foreign upstart, Cam was a local hero. 

Laced into a mint green, square
necked gown of airy lawn suited to the climate, Brenna sat beside Cam in their open carriage, tilting a frilly parasol aloft.  Though she welcomed the warmth of the sun on her face, Cam had insisted without a sunshade she would never preserve her fair complexion in the tropics.  He had presented her with a delicate froth of green that exactly matched her gown, courtesy of Madame Bonnard the seamstress.

Hats doffed as their equipage rolled up the boulevard.

"MacCavan,
mon ami
." 

At this salute,
Cam ordered the driver to pull up.  "Emile, what good fortune to find you at
Le Cap
."

A round
  faced, balding man distinguished only by his exquisite tailoring stepped from the stone
banquette
.

"What good news to see you safely again in port," the older man said.  "And what prize is this you've brought back with you?"

Cam
smiled tolerantly at his admiring glance at Brenna.  "The rarest, and the closest to my heart."

Startled at such a flowery phrase from
Cam, Brenna struggled to follow the conversation with her limited French.  Cam introduced Emile Fouquet as the brother in law of the governor. 

"So you're the beauty from
Scotland we've heard so much of."   He bowed over her hand with a roguish look, and spoke in English.  "What a path you'll cut through our young rascals in
Cap Haitien
."

"Not unless they relish my calling them out,"
Cam joked. 

"You're too kind,
Monsieur
Fouquet," Brenna responded, "but I don't expect to stay long in your city."

"Ah, but you
must.  You must allow us to
fête
your
corsair
, and you as well.  Till now this
roué
has kept you in hiding."  

For a second,
Cam's fingers tensed on Brenna's arm.  "Any man would keep a
fiancée
like Brenna in hiding," he said in a smooth good natured voice.  "Already you threaten to be a rival, Emile."

Brenna had stiffened at his claim, but
Cam's grip tightened in earnest, warning her not to challenge him. 

"Would that I could be," Fouquet replied with a playful roll of his eye
s.  "As it is, I can only join my fellow planters in toasting your genius for relieving English ships of their cargoes and their gold."

"I hate the English as much as any Frenchman,"
Cam said flatly.

"Just so,
mon ami
.  We are truly brothers, and I'm told that soon you'll be bringing in a sugar crop at Scotsman's Bend." 

Brenna turned to
Cam.  "Scotsman's Bend?"

"Your
fiancé
has the makings of a fine plantation.  In another year, he'll be one of the richest men on the island."

Pride was evident in
Cam's smile.  "I was saving Scotsman's Bend as a surprise for you.  The house is finished and almost furnished, though I'll leave it to you to add your own touches."

Brenna was aghast.  "This is mad,
Cam.  How can you make plans like this now?"

Cam
laughed and cocked an eyebrow at Fouquet, as if to ask what man could understand a woman.  "Apparently I've overstepped myself in ordering so much furniture from France.  I can see that I'll be making amends."

A sympathetic chuckle rumbled up from the Frenchman's portly belly.  "And I can see that I should be saying
adieu
before I find myself in the midst of a
contretemps
."

When he stepped away from the carriage,
Cam signaled to the driver, and he flicked his whip over the backs of the team.  As soon as the wheels rolled forward, Brenna whirled to confront Cam. "How could you tell anyone I'm your
fiancée
?" she demanded in a low furious voice.

Cam
's mouth twitched dangerously.  "Up until the moment I found you in England, I believed you were," he reminded her shortly. 

Brenna couldn't deny that.  But the rest was utter folly.  "How can you allow anyone to go on thinking nothing has changed?"