A True Lady Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Also by Edith Layton and Untreed Reads Publishing

  A heroine for Susie

  A True Lady

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  A True Lady

  By Edith Layton

  Copyright 2017 by Estate of Edith Felber

  Cover Copyright 2017 by Untreed Reads Publishing

  Cover Design by Ginny Glass

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  Previously published in print, 1995.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Also by Edith Layton and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The Duke’s Wager

  The Disdainful Marquis

  The Mysterious Heir

  Red Jack’s Daughter

  Lord of Dishonor

  Peaches and the Queen

  False Angel

  The Indian Maiden

  Lady of Spirit

  The Wedding

  www.untreedreads.com

  A heroine for Susie

  A True Lady

  Edith Layton

  CHAPTER 1

  Autumn 1721

  Her hair blew around her face like silken streamers, but that was the only thing about her that moved. She stood braced against the wind as she looked out over the sea. Her face was as still as the carved figurehead on the great ship she watched, but the girl was far more beautiful than that wooden symbol of female perfection, and real tears, not just salt spray, coursed down her cheeks as she saw the pirate ship approach. She didn’t flinch.

  She had watched the battle and never doubted the outcome. And now, as she expected, two ships came sailing into the harbor with black flags flying. The merchantman was too fine a ship to send to the bottom of the sea with its crew, so those who had refused to throw in with the pirates had been overtaken and overwhelmed. The crowd on the dock cheered and jeered, and threw their ragged caps in the air to see the prize being brought to them. The hellish sound rose high in the sweltering air: a chorus of rough voices, a screeching of parrots and donkeys and monkeys and all the denizens of the pirate community in raucous celebration. She only dashed away her tears with the back of one hand and breathed a broken sigh at her show of weakness. Then she squared her slender shoulders, took a deep breath, and waited patiently for her destiny.

  The pirates carried the gold off first. Many eager hands made light work of it, though the chests were filled to brimming. Many sharp eyes watched the grubby hands, and the noise fell to a murmur as they did. Nothing was so important to a pirate as gold, so the rejoicing stopped until the chests were safely stowed in the pirate king’s own coffers. Then the chests of jewels, the boxes of silks and satins, and the kegs of wine and spices were carted off the conquered ship, along with the cattle, the ducks and chickens. And then last, and certainly least, the wretched humans were unloaded. Some were in chains, some in bloody bandaging, and some were dead. The last man was off, with the captain, and he was definitely the prize. You could see the glee in the pirate king’s glittering eyes.

  He ignored the weary captain and the officers of the beaten crew and turned his back on the passengers of the ship he’d taken. Prodding this captive in the back with his long, glittering knife, he strolled off the ship. The crowd at the cove grew silent and made a path for the two men as they marched forward to the pirate king’s house.

  It was a small, ramshackle settlement for a king to rule over, but just as the king was named captain of his ship, so he was considered king of the village where his crew lived when they weren’t at their terrible business at sea. There were many fierce-looking men in the little village, a few fierce or sullen-looking women, many children. These people lived in lean-tos and tumbledown shacks and tents, yet in truth, these pirate quarters could hardly be called houses. They were merely places to sleep and to keep out of the rain. None were clean, and all were littered, except for the pirate king’s own house.

  His home wasn’t very grand, but it was finer than any other house in the village. It was small, to be sure, and made of wood, but it was neat, and the flower-filled courtyard was fenced in to keep out the wandering chickens, dogs, and goats. It was there that the crowd congregated.

  The king of the pirates was a burly middle-aged man with dark eyes and a great beard, black as his sins. His long, greasy hair hung limp in the humid air. He wore tar black breeches and big black boots, but his coat was as scarlet as the blotches of his victims’ blood drying on it, and the ragged lace at his wrists and throat was smeared with the same terrible pigment. When he reached his dooryard he threw open the gate and stopped. His smile was white and crooked and he puffed out his great chest in triumph as he looked down at the beautiful young woman who stood before him.

  “Aye. I’ve gone and done it. So here he be—your future husband,” he bellowed, and shoved his captive forward with one callused hand.

  The young man staggered, but held his head high and didn’t fall at the girl’s feet as the pirate had planned. He was a fair-haired, slender young man, dressed in what had once been fine clothes. His face was ashen and his light eyes were wild with anger, but his rage was nothing compared to the woman’s. She took in a deep breath and looked the pirate square in the eye.

  “Stow it!” she shouted, her fine amber eyes glinting with a fierce light. “Ye be off yer nut if ye be thinking I be mating wi’ this…this…fop! So take him back, or sell him for a fine price, but I’ll not be wedded to the likes of him. Never!”

  The pirate made a low, threatening sound deep in his throat. Despite his shock, the young man turned to him in surprise; he’d never heard a human being actually growl before. The young woman’s face was white, but she stuck out her small, dimpled chin and stood firm.

  “Oh, but ye will—because I say ye will!” the pirate bellowed. “And this very day!”

  “Never!” she shrieked back….

  “Aye, well then,” the pirate purred, “too bad for the lad. Aye,” he went on, nodding as she bit her lip in the horror of sudden comprehension, “’cause if ye won’t take him as yer husband, ye’ll have his guts fer shoestrings—and his fingers and toes fer a necklace, and his various manly appurtenances on yer dinner plate fer yer tasty delectation—this very night. And I mean it, Cristabel, ye know I do. I’m all out of patience. Have him as husband, or have him in pieces. It’s up to ye!”

  “Why him?” she wailed.

  “Well, him
—or me mate, Bold Black Jack Kelly.”

  She flinched. “Never!” she cried.

  “Aye. Well then, take the lad. He’s a high lord, and an English one, too, like ye always be going on about. Real refined. Aye. I be a proper concerned papa after all. I could have brought ye a Spaniard or a Moor, or even a Frenchie. But no, I goes to great pains to get ye what ye always said ye wanted, a fine English gent. Behold, Magnus Titus Snow—the great Lord Snow, of Camden Hall, a nobleman born and bred. And yer new husband, child.”

  The young man, who until now had remained silent, raised his battered head. “But—no!” he said with sudden hope. “I am Snow, but you’ve got the wrong one. He was supposed to come, but I took passage in his stead. I am not he.”

  “I am not he,” the pirate echoed in wonder. “Ye see? Talks so fine, you could spread it on bread.”

  “But I’m not,” the young man protested, “really. Magnus is my brother.”

  “Aye,” the pirate said with humor, “and that’s why yer chests all have the letters `M.T.’ all over them. Cross-eyed Sweeney, what can read, told me,” he confided to his daughter.

  “My name is Martin Thomas,” the young man insisted. “Magnus is my brother, I vow it.”

  “Aye, aye,” the pirate said with a grin that tilted his hedge of a beard, “to be sure. But ye be vowing something else more important soon as we gets ye cleaned up. Ah—stow it,” he said, cuffing the young man lightly. “I can see the profit of staying out of the parson’s mousetrap, none better, me lord. But yer caught, fair and square. No sense in a fish arguing when he’s beached, hooked, baked, and buttered up ready to serve, eh? No. ’Tis my daughter ye’ll be wedding, this very night.”

  “I can explain…” the young man said.

  “No, ye can’t,” the pirate roared, silencing him. “Mebbe ye wanted some fine lady, I can see that,” he went on reflectively. “But mark ye—ye’ll be getting none finer than our Cristabel. She’s educated. Can read and write. Sew and sing. Her mama was a fine lady herself, I promise ye. And dowry? Well, don’t be worrying none ’bout that. She’ll come to you richer than any lord’s daughter. Chests of gold and jewels, lad, emeralds and pearls enough to make an emperor slaver. I do fer my own, I do. None can say else. And as fer beauty? Look at her straightly and tell me ye seen better in yer lifetime and I’ll know ye for a rotten liar.”

  Many men, with a sharp knife at their back, would agree, whatever she looked like, but for all he wanted to disagree, the young man couldn’t. This girl was a rare beauty. She was as flamboyantly vivid and lush as the tropical isle he now stood upon. Though she was slender, her garish parrot green gown showed a high, full bosom and a tiny waist. She had a fair, fine-featured face with a small nose and delightfully plump, curving mouth. Her eyes were long-lashed, sloed, and the color of raw whiskey; her complexion, smooth and blushed with a faint golden bloom; and her glorious red-gold hair, a mass of thick, windblown silken curls. But her fine eyes held murder as she glared back at him.

  “She’s lovely,” he agreed. “But I swear that I’m not who you think I—”

  The pirate removed the knife from the small of his back, and now held it beneath the captive’s chin.

  “Enough. Whoever ye say ye be,” the pirate said quietly, “ye be marrying my daughter this night—or ye be getting her pretty slippers all filled with yer bright blood. Now, ye wouldn’t want to be ruining her shoes, would ye?”

  The young man swallowed. He could feel the thin, cold kiss of steel when he did.

  “No,” he said softly.

  “Good!” the pirate said happily, “Now, he just proposed. What say ye, daughter?”

  She swallowed too. “Rot you,” she said. Then she looked at the young man before her. She wilted. “Aye. I will,” she sighed.

  “Amen,” said the pirate. “Congratulations. Now. We get us a minister and do it refined. Right?”

  *

  The pirates celebrated the wedding all through the night. They camped on the beach before huge fires and ate roasted meat and fresh fruits, drank rum and wine until they were sick or sleeping. They made loud noise and music and love until dawn. They danced with their wives and mothers, daughters and concubines, slaves and servants, and then with each other, jigging and hopping and whirling until they were so overheated, they had to douse themselves in the sea or with whiskey. There were chanteys and love songs and roundelays sung, and all to the music of squeeze boxes and drums, fiddles and flutes. For once, the night birds and tree toads on the isle were silent, and even the tide went out and came in without notice.

  “Aye. There’s naught like a wedding to make a man sentimental,” the pirate king said with a deep sigh as the rising sun showed a rosy blush on the far horizon. He brushed some crumbs from his beard and gave the sleepy girl lying in his lap a long kiss before tumbling her to the ground. This time he didn’t join her there, but rose and stretched deeply. “Done and done,” he said with satisfaction, “Now there be practical things to settle.”

  He stepped over various intertwined bodies and made his way to the edge of the beach, where a young man, his hands and feet bound, stared glumly out at the sea.

  “Good morning, m’lord son-in-law,” the pirate king said heartily.

  The young man looked up. “I am not who you think I am,” he said wearily.

  “I think ye be me son-in-law, and so ye be. Here’s the paper what says it,” the pirate chortled, taking a ribbon-tied document from his greasy coat pocket and waving it around. “Now, ye ain’t consummated the wedding, I agree. But even I didn’t expect ye to get up the wind, what with so many dozen lads all jeering ye on.” He grinned, tucking the paper back next to his heart again. “There be a long sea journey ahead of ye, and I expect confinement with such as me Cristabel will do the trick. Yer not made of stone, lad. Nor be ye ignorant of such passions, nor slow to take them up neither, not from what I heared of ye. Yer reputation do ye proud, lad, and I don’t doubt ye’ll do fer me girl—soon as me back’s turned, no doubt. Since there’s no way out fer ye, why pass up the treat?” He chuckled again.

  “What sea journey?” the young man asked with the first show of liveliness the pirate had seen from him since he’d finally been made to gasp, “I do.”

  “Why, ye be going home. I didn’t wed ye to me lass so she could queen it here, ye know. She’s already by way of being royalty here. No, no, I wants her to take her rightful place at yer side in England, me lord. As Lady Snow. Lady Cristabel Eleanora Snow,” he said with awe. He paused to blow his nose. After he’d dragged his sleeve beneath his nose, he went on thickly, “Aye. A true lady, just like her mum.

  “So,” he said more briskly, “I’m sending her with ye on the first fair tide. First to Port Royale, and there on a good stout ship back to England. With a word in all the right places—or better yet, the wrong ones—that it would go ill with Felix Stew, Old Captain Whiskey hisself—at yer service,” he added with a great sweeping, mocking bow, “were anyone to interfere with the safe passage of that ship—if ye gets me drift.”

  “Home?” the young man said with dawning eagerness.

  “Aye. But don’t be getting no fancy ideas, me lord. There’ll be some of me own men with ye on that voyage. And though they can’t oblige the hangman by staying on in England, there be men of the brotherhood there to pass the word. Try anything rude with me lass, and I’ll hear of it, I vow.” He wagged a thick finger. “She be yer lady now, and no two ways about it. Ah, but what’s the sense of threatening ye? Twist and turn as ye may, it’s done.”

  He bent and slipped his long dagger through the young man’s bonds, and then helped him to his unsteady legs. Then he wrapped one arm around him and walked with him along the beach, “Now, we gets ye washed and packed, and off ye go,” he said.

  The young man nodded, not wanting to open his mouth lest he have to breathe in more of his captor’s rich odor.

  “Ah—but,” the pirate said thoughtfully a few minutes later, “better ye don’t see ye
r blushing bride again till ye board the ship. She be…shy as ye be. So best ye meet again when there’s naught but a cabin, a bed, a closed door, and the two of ye, alone. Aye,” he said thoughtfully, “best, that way, I think—I hope.”

  *

  The bride’s trunks were packed, and her father had three more filled with jewels and gold. They were all loaded on top of the carriage as she said farewell to her childhood friends and companions. This took quite some time, for there were so many parrots, dogs, and cats for her to cuddle, pet, and promise to never forget. She wept a little, and her eyes were pink when, holding her head high, she marched up the little stair to get into the carriage. She never shed a tear or uttered a single word to anyone—not even her father—all the rocky way to Port Royale.

  Her ship was being boarded at the wharfside. The docks of Port Royale served many vessels and were so crowded with people and animals that even the constant trade winds couldn’t keep them cool. Between the brightly dressed natives selling their wares, the prostitutes in their gaudy half-dresses, and the remarkably costumed seamen from many far lands, the gaudy pirates almost passed unnoticed.

  Cristabel was dressed in the height of pirate fashion. She wore a low-cut gown of bright apricot silk swagged with lace and brilliants, with a silk shawl of canary yellow draped over her shoulders in spite of the heat. She stood fanning herself, as though alone, ignoring Captain Whiskey as he stood at her side.

  The groom—along with his trunks—was already loaded on the ship. Two stalwart pirates had seen him to his cabin and then bolted the door behind him. The bride’s belongings were also safely stowed. Although the girl seemed resigned to her fate, her eyes flashed with anger and yet sometimes seemed suspiciously misty. Her lips remained sealed, but just as she turned to board, her father took her hand and held it hard in his own callused one.

  “Give us a smile, lass,” he said in a soft voice. “I did it all for ye. It breaks me old heart to see ye so,” he went on when she didn’t speak, “fer it’s a strange old world, and ye bound fer halfway ’cross it, and given the times and the road I travel, who knows if I shall ever see ye again? Ah, Crissie, love,” he sighed, “I did it all for ye, can ye not see it?”