The Raider Read online

  “It’s a bargain then,” Alex said. “We’ll stay together. I shall be the most delicate example of young manhood in America. And you will show us Americans how to work.”

  Nick frowned at that. “If someone sends me to the fields, I will quit. Ah, but I will have some tales to tell my family.”

  “I hope your family believes you more than mine does. Shall we start getting me dressed? I’m already beginning to hate that wig.”

  Chapter Three

  ALEXANDER allowed himself plenty of time to dress. After checking his wound, he and Nick began carefully padding his thighs until they filled the satin breeches, wrapping layers around his mid section until his belly stuck out almost a foot, then setting the heavy powdered wig on over his black hair. When they were through, he was so bundled that sweat was already beginning to form on his brow.

  “I don’t know if they’re worth this,” Alex said bitterly.

  “They are your people.” Nicholas shrugged.

  “Who have turned against me.” Alex had a vision of Jessica Taggert as she laughed at him on the dock. If she hadn’t been there, would the townspeople have believed his disguise?

  It was eleven o’clock when he waddled into the common room of the Montgomery house, and many people were waiting there for him. They pretended that they had genuine business with the Montgomery household, but Alex could see by their eyes that they were waiting for him. For just a moment, he held his breath, sure that someone would laugh and tell him to abandon his disguise now that he was home and among friends.

  But, one by one, they looked back at the drinks they were nursing.

  Alex glanced at Eleanor as she directed two women in cooking over the open fireplace. The common room was a combination kitchen, parlor and meeting room. Since the Montgomery family owned most of Warbrooke, they did the most business, and during the day nearly everyone in town came through this room for one reason or another. Sayer Montgomery had always seen that drink and food were waiting for those who came to his house.

  Two men in a corner of the room, sitting at the end of one of the two tables, began to speak quite loudly.

  “My son-in-law grew that wheat himself but before I could take it to Spain, I had to stop in England and unload it for them to inspect.”

  “And I had to take cocoa from Brazil to England to be inspected before I could bring it to Boston.”

  The men looked over their drinks to Alexander, but he was pretending not to hear them. They weren’t bothering to pay him the courtesy of speaking to him directly, so why should he show them his concern? And what did they expect him to do about English law? It was as if they still believed these were the days of medieval law and he was the lord who could go to the king personally and complain.

  “And I lost my ship because of sixty pounds,” Josiah Greene said.

  Alexander looked at the enormous plate of food that Eleanor set before him. He felt as if he were the only person in the audience of a play he’d already seen. As he ate, he listened to Josiah’s tale. No doubt he’d told it a thousand times, but the men here were replaying it for Alexander’s benefit.

  They told how Josiah had had a beautiful ship, one he’d been very proud of—but he’d angered John Pitman. Something about a piece of land Josiah owned and wouldn’t sell. Pitman said that he was sure Josiah had a hold full of green paint—a contraband article. Pitman seized Josiah’s ship but found no paint, so he brought a dozen soldiers and searched Josiah’s house in the middle of the night. In the course of the “search” a cellar full of food was destroyed, linens were ripped apart, furniture broken and his daughters terrorized. Josiah tried to get his ship back, but he was told that he’d have to put up a bond of sixty pounds. Since all his money was invested in the bond he had to give Pitman each time he sailed out of Warbrooke, he couldn’t afford another sixty pounds. His friends collected the money for him, but the burden of the proof of innocence was on Josiah’s shoulders. Pitman said there had been green paint on board; Josiah said there never had been. They stated their cases before the Colonial Admiralty Court—a judge, no jury—and the ship was given to Pitman and his officers since Josiah could not prove that he’d never had green paint aboard his ship.

  Alexander soon forgot his own misery as he glanced at Josiah, a man broken, all quite legally, by a greedy Englishman. Pitman wanted land Josiah owned and had not only gotten the land but had come to own everything else that had belonged to the Greene family.

  Alex kept his head bent over his food because he didn’t want them to see the anger that was boiling in him. If he was to keep his disguise, he could not allow them to see how their words affected him. He felt their eyes on him, watching him and waiting to see if he was the man they thought he was. They were like children who thought someone with the Montgomery name could fix their problems and make everything right once again.

  Alex was saved from showing his feelings because the door opened and in walked Jessica Taggert with a couple of big baskets full of oysters.

  Jessica took one look at the people, all of them standing completely still and looking as if they were expecting a storm to break, and knew immediately what was going on.

  “Still got your hopes up?” she laughed, glancing from one man to the other. “Still think this Montgomery is going to help you? God only made three Montgomerys: Sayer, Adam and Kit. This one doesn’t deserve the name. Here, Eleanor,” she said, handing the baskets to her sister. “It looks as if you’ll be needing these, what with a parade going through here all day.” She gave Alex a smirking look, although he hadn’t raised his head from the plate. “It looks like they’ll all get something to see with that one here.”

  Very slowly, Alex raised his head and looked at her. He tried to keep the fury out of his eyes, but he was only partially successful. “Good morning, Mistress Jessica,” he said in a low voice. “Are you selling those? Have you no husband to support you?”

  The men at the table across the room began to snicker. With Jessica so pretty, there wasn’t a man who hadn’t had contact with her in some way. Either they’d asked her to marry them after they’d worn out a wife with bearing babies, or they had a son who’d tried for her hand, or a cousin—or else the men just dreamed of having her. But now, here was a man who was insinuating that maybe nobody wanted her.

  “I can take care of myself,” Jessica said, drawing herself up to stand straighter. “I want no man under my feet; no man to tell me what to do and how to do it.”

  Alexander smiled at her. “I see.” He gave her a look up and down. Long ago, Jess had learned that she couldn’t run her little boat while wearing long skirts so she had adapted a sailor’s garment for her own use. She wore tall boots beneath baggy pants that reached her knees, topped by a loose blouse and an unbuttoned waistcoat. Except that her waist was very small and she had to belt the pants tightly to hold them up, she was dressed like most of the men in Warbrooke. “Tell me,” Alex said smoothly, “do you still want the name of my tailor?”

  The men began to laugh with more gusto than the joke warranted. So many of them had watched Jessica saunter down the dock, her hips moving in a way that made them gape. Even in her men’s clothing, she obviously had all the curves every woman wished she had.

  Eleanor stepped in before another jibe could be made. “Thank you for the oysters. Maybe you could bring us some cod this afternoon.”

  Jessica nodded mutely, still angry at the way Alexander had made the men laugh at her. She glared at Alex for a moment, not even bothering to look at the men around her who were laughing and so thoroughly enjoying her humiliation, then turned on her heel and left the house.

  Eleanor grabbed Alexander’s plate, still half-full of the food he couldn’t eat, and gave him a hard look, but she didn’t say a word. After all, he was her employer’s son. Instead, she turned to Nicholas, who was lounging against the door jamb. “Take this out to the hogs. And do it now!”

  Nick opened his mouth to say something and then closed it, his eyes