The Raider Read online

  “I guess you could always tell Abigail,” Jessica said, smiling maliciously. “I’m sure the Raider slips into her bedchamber at night.”

  “Are you jealous?” Alex raised one eyebrow.

  “Of a sneak thief? The Raider is no better than a highwayman. If he had any courage, he’d stand up and denounce Pitman.”

  And hang for it, Alex thought. “So you have no idea how the Raider heard of Ben Sampson’s smuggling tea in?”

  “Everyone in town knew about Ben and the tea. Even Abigail had heard of it.” She put her mug down and leaned forward. Her eyes were bright and the color in her cheeks heightened.

  Alex began to sweat again.

  “What if we start passing this information around? What if we tell a few people that the Golden Hind is delivering money to Pitman from the sale of Josiah’s ship? If the rumor starts at the wharf, maybe Pitman will think it came from a sailor of His Majesty’s ship.”

  Alex sipped his rum and thought that maybe there was more than one Taggert who had some brains.

  * * *

  Jessica stayed on deck even when the sailors from the Golden Hind made lewd remarks to her. They’d been out to sea for months and the sight of so pretty a woman on the little relic docked next to them was more than their imaginations could handle. Usually, Jess took precautions and stayed away from newly arrived ships, but last evening she had made every effort to put her little ship next to the big one. It loomed over her like some fat old lady, the leering eyes of the sailors like rats at her beltline. Jess did her best to ignore them.

  After Alex’s visit yesterday morning, they’d separated and started casually spreading their rumors about Pitman’s money arriving on the Hind. It hadn’t taken many tellings to irritate the people. The money was from the sale of a ship belonging to one of their own and they directed their anger at the newly arrived English sailors. Already, four fights had started and three men were in the stocks in the town square.

  After starting the rumors, Jessica had sailed out of the harbor and gone shrimping. She’d trawled close to the northeastern shore where she could see the arrival of the Golden Hind, and all afternoon she’d cast and recast her net—and waited. She wasn’t sure what she planned to do, but if the Raider appeared and he needed help, she planned to help him.

  A couple of times her mind rebelled at the idea of helping the man who’d so publicly humiliated her, but her desire to repay Pitman made her forget her own personal anger. If the American people didn’t start protesting the English treatment, there wouldn’t be any end to their tyranny.

  The hold was half-full of squiggling shrimp before the Golden Hind had arrived and Jessica had tried her best to act nonchalant as she pushed her way into the harbor and tied up next to the big ship. She’d no more than dropped her sails before Nathaniel was there to catch her rope and tie her ship next to the square-rigger.

  Nate scurried up the rope Jess tossed over the side. “You’re out late. Eleanor made me wait for you.”

  Jess didn’t answer him but started watching the activity on the English ship as best she could considering her much lower position.

  “Gor…” Nate said, looking at the amount of shrimp in the hold.

  “Get the other kids and bag it, then take it around and sell it,” Jess snapped.

  Nathaniel gave her a shrewd look. The boy saw much too much for someone of his few years.

  “Don’t give me any trouble, just do it!” Jess was annoyed because she couldn’t see what was happening on the Golden Hind.

  She stayed on board her stinking ship all night. When Eleanor came to the dock, Jessica barely answered her questions about why she wasn’t coming home. She slept very little, not allowing herself to go downstairs to the relative luxury of her berth, instead staying on deck, leaning against the side of the ship, a bailing pin nearby in case one of the sailors decided to do what all of them threatened.

  At dawn she rose, stiff, a kink in her back, and heard the soft whinny of a horse nearby. Hanging over the side of her ship, she looked below to see a saddled horse ready and waiting.

  She came fully awake. The horse had streaks of gray on its coat, but nothing could hide the sleek lines and the nervous prancing of the animal. It was the Raider’s horse.

  A head appeared on the other side of the Mary Catherine. It was George Greene, Josiah’s oldest son, an angry young man of twenty-six who’d been cheated of his inheritance.

  Jessica turned to him.

  “You saw it, too,” George said softly, then louder, “I hear you have shrimp to sell, Mistress Jessica.” His eyes told her that they were being watched.

  “Aye, George, that I do. Let me get you a bag.” Jess tore down the steps below and pulled out a burlap bag, stuffed a length of frayed rope inside and ran back up the stairs. “Will that be enough?” She stepped close to George. “Do you know anything?”

  “Nothing. Father is afraid to hope. He wants Pitman dead.”

  “I’d like to sail under her,” came a voice from above them.

  “You’d better go,” Jess whispered. “I wish you enjoyment of the shrimp,” she said for the sailor’s benefit.

  “I’ll stay with his horse. He may need me.”

  Jess nodded and turned away.

  Suddenly, above them came a shout and then the sounds of unfamiliar ruckus.

  “It’s him!” George said and the hope in his voice was what would usually be reserved for the second coming.

  “Go to his horse,” Jess commanded. “He may need help.” She ran up the short ladder to the upper deck, put her foot in the rigging as if to climb but never got the chance.

  From the high ship rail of the Golden Hind, the Raider swung down on a rope tied to the top of the mainmast. The sunlight flashing off this man, a bound chest under his left arm, effectively stopped all movement in the vicinity.

  For a moment everything seemed to stop moving. The tall Raider lithely swung across the ship, slipped down the rope and came to land in front of Jessica on the upper deck.

  His eyes caught hers.

  “You got the money,” she breathed, her eyes happy and alive.

  He caught her to him with one strong arm and kissed her half-open mouth.

  Jessica was too startled to be able to move away from him, but stood there while he kissed her. But when he pulled away from her as quickly as he’d come to her, she no longer thought of why they were there. She was aware only that this stranger had dared to kiss her. She drew back her hand to strike him, but he caught her wrist and boldly kissed her palm. “Good morning, Mistress Jessica,” he said, his lips smiling in a knowing way.

  The next minute he was gone, heading toward the rope slung over the side of the ship.

  But she had no precious time to waste on anger. She had to help the Raider escape. If the Golden Hind’s sailors were dumbfounded, her captain was not. Jess could hear orders being shouted and above her was movement as four men prepared to board her ship.

  She wasn’t fool enough to try to stop His Majesty’s sailors, but perhaps she could delay them. She grabbed a coil of rope at her feet, rope as big around as her arm, and tossed an end to George who’d reboarded at the first sound of excitement. The Raider disappeared over the side of the ship.

  Four sailors came scurrying across the deck of Jessica’s ship, close on the heels of the Raider.

  George pulled his end of the rope, Jess half-hitched hers to the railing and all four sailors went sprawling just as they heard the sound of hoofbeats on the wharf.

  “Take them!” she heard the captain shout from the ship above them and the next moment rough hands eagerly clutched her body. The men grinned when their hands brushed against her breasts and buttocks.

  She was pulled off her ship, onto the wharf and across the gangplank of the Golden Hind, then shoved to her knees before the English captain, with George beside her.

  The captain, a short, heavyset man in his fifties, looked down his nose at her. “So this is how the ladies dress i