"Hmm," says Liam, chewing thoughtfully, "perhaps we should slip up to Scotland. It's still pretty wild and untamed up there."
Higgins refills both our glasses. "Forgive me," he says, "but if I might interrupt?"
I give him the go-ahead with a questioning eyebrow.
"When I was in Lord Hollingsworth's service," he continues, "His Lordship would rant and rave far into the night about the scoundrels that abounded in a place called Harwich. It is a port that is frequented by smugglers and other sorts whose pursuits of livelihoods do not rule out the ... well, slightly irregular. Lord Hollingsworth's estates were concentrated in the Colchester area, which is nearby to Harwich, and I believe he suffered some losses at the hands of denizens of said Harwich. It is likely that not many questions would be asked of us there." Higgins reaches down and pulls the napkin that was supposed to be in my lap from the tabletop and puts it in its proper place.
I look at Liam for his reaction. Although he knows I have the Letter of Marque, he also knows just how I got the Emerald and why I'm shy about people asking questions as to her origins.
"It's only about eighty miles from here. If winds stay fair we could be there in three days," he says. He leans back in his chair and considers. "I've been there. It's an active, well-protected port. Before the war it was the main port for mail packets running back and forth to Holland. It would be easy to sell the ship there. And there're several good taverns ... the men would have a good time, without getting into too much trouble, I think."
"Also, it is entirely possible," says Higgins, "that the Topaz was headed for that very port with her cargo of contraband. We might be able to sell the wine to the intended receivers."
I feel a smile spreading over my face. Ain't you just the cleverest fox, Higgins, ain't you just?
"Harwich it is," I say.
Later, after the lamps are put out and I am in my bed, I lie there looking off into the darkness. I listen to the creak and groan of my ship, sounds which are usually like lullabies to me, but this night they comfort me not, for I cannot rid my mind of images of that poor, terrified woman, begging me for the very life of her child. I pull my knees up to my chin.
Sleep comes neither easily nor quickly to me this night.
Chapter 29
Higgins was right. Harwich is an excellent port in which to do our business—except for one thing. They don't let us tie up alongside the quay. They make us anchor a couple hundred yards out and the Topaz farther out still.
We don't dare ignore the orders, for when we came in, we had to sail right under the big guns at Shotley Gate, which guard the entrance to the harbor and which we know could blow us all to bits before we could even think about firing back with our puny cannons. The brutish guns sit up in a stone bunker and we looked right down the barrels as we passed, at point-blank range. Well, that's all right. We'll be good. We'll just have to use our boats to get back and forth from the ship to the dock.
It also turns out that Higgins was right about this being the destination of the smuggler and it is not long before a meeting is set up between us and the owners of the cargo ... the once-owners of the cargo, and a sullen bunch they turned out to be.
We receive them in my cabin. They are shocked by the sight of me seated at the head of the table in my officer's rig, but let them be shocked. Higgins, dressed in his fine suit of clothes, sits next to me, pen poised over a ledger. There are four of them and they pull out chairs and sit down. No nice manners here. Liam and Reilly stand next to the wall and all of us are armed to the teeth. I wear my sword and pistols so that there is no mistaking our seriousness of purpose.
Higgins begins, "We have a consignment of wine worth, in our estimation, one hundred and fifty-seven pounds sterling, which..."
"Which we already own, you blackguards!" says one of the merchants, his face red and his eyes bulging.
"And which, I might point out," says Higgins without expression, "you entrusted to the care of a ship owned by an enemy power with the express intent of transgressing His Majesty's laws..."
The man shuts up.
"Let us continue," says Higgins. "In consideration of the fact that you once held ownership of this cargo, we are willing to accept the sum of an even one hundred pounds. You will still make a profit, in the end."
"And if we don't accept that offer, you damned thieves?" fumes another of the merchants. Liam and Reilly put their hands on the hilts of their swords.
"Then, Sir," says Higgins with a slight smile, "the damned thieves will drink it themselves, or else we will pour it into the harbor to the delight of the mermaids and fishes, before we drop the price one farthing."
They pay the price. And, after much haggling, they buy the Topaz, too. Higgins turns out to have not only the soul of a pirate, which I already knew, but also the keen and calculating mind of a hard-nosed businessman.
***
The men are in a high state of excitement, as they are suddenly richer than they have ever been before, each of the crew having been given two guineas, six shillings so as to have a good time ashore and maybe buy some gifts for those back home. Liam and Reilly and I had sat down and divided the crew into two in-port watch sections, one section to stay on the ship while the other was allowed to go on liberty. Liam would head the Port Section and Reilly the Starboard, and in each section we evened out the numbers of older, experienced men with the younger, more green sailors. Men known to be good friends were put in the same watch. That way the ship is properly protected, and that way maybe the gray-heads would be a good influence on the youngbloods when they hit the taverns at night. Calm them down a bit, like.
With me on one side and Reilly on his other, Liam addresses the assembled crew and gives them warnings about how to conduct themselves onshore. My ears burn a bit when he tells them that no women are to be brought aboard the Emerald and not a few merry eyes glance my way—all of them know of my past on the Dolphin and the Wolverine and figure I'm acting quite the hypocrite, but so be it—I'll not have my ship turned into a floating brothel. A flip of a coin decides that the Starboard Watch has liberty today, the Port tomorrow, and then we will head back out to resume our raiding.
Higgins and I take a turn about the town and again I'm hit by the strangeness of being on the land and how firm it feels underfoot after having been at sea for a spell—got to shed your sea legs, girl, so you don't roll down the street like any old tar.
I poke about in the stores while Higgins goes to an ironmonger to buy a strongbox to bolt to the deck under my bed—that's where we will keep our new riches till we get back to Ireland. I buy a new bonnet and some handkerchiefs, and then I walk by a goldsmith's shop, but there I stop. In the window, on display on a piece of black velvet, are gold hoop earrings, placed there so as to catch the eyes of young sailors who think they are now salty enough to wear one with pride. I think about my own lost gold earring and that goldsmith's shop in Kingston and I start to tear up but I shake my head. You stop that now! And then I make myself not think about that anymore, and I go to find Higgins and return to the ship—to my ship, my Emerald, which is now the love of my life, and the only love I need.
As we lie out at anchor, a good hundred yards from the dock and the town lying there with all its enticements, a swarm of bumboats cluster about us, offering their wares to my sailors, my sailors who open the gunports and look down, the better to deal with the waterborne vendors. As most are selling food, trinkets, souvenirs, cloth, and other harmless things, I don't interfere with their honest trade. After all, we are in the same sort of business, and it goes on in every port. But I see also that some of the things for sale are not quite so harmless—I see that some of my young men, like that young rascal Arthur McBride and his friend Ian McConnaughey, right down there on the deck below me, have already used some of their money to buy certain things from the bumboats, but not fine presents for their mothers, nor the best Dutch tobacco for their fathers' pipes, nor soft cloth for their sisters to sew into pretty dresses, nay, not any of that, but instead cheap versions of gentlemen's swords for themselves, which they now buckle about their waists. It looks like they mean to go swaggering off into the town looking for trouble, a couple of hotheaded Irish lads just waiting for some Englishman to insult them. Insults that they will, no doubt, receive. I must speak to this.
I get up on the quarterdeck and call for their attention, just before the first liberty party goes to leave the ship.
"Pray, listen to me, my brave and noble lads! If you have any affection for me at all, and I so hope that you do, then you will keep yourselves from trouble while you are here in this town. If you are put in jail, I will be unable to get you out, so please, please, if someone here in town offers a slight offense, let it go, for God's sake. If a chance for a fight comes up, do not put your fist in the other fellow's face but instead clap him on the back and buy him a drink in friendship. I tell you this not only as your friend who fears that harm will come to your dear bodies, but also I tell you this as Owner of the Emerald that you will get no more prize money if we have to leave you here behind to rot in an English prison!"
I hope they take my words to heart, but telling Irishmen not to fight, well, it could be a forlorn hope. Maybe, though, by telling them that I, myself, a girl that they maybe admire a bit, will think more of them for being good and less of them for causing trouble, it will make them behave. We'll see.
"Would it be out of place for me to recommend some restraint tonight, Miss?" says Higgins. He has laid out and spruced up my riding habit, which I intend to wear out this evening.
"Are you telling me to be good, Higgins?" I ask, arching my brows and grinning at him. I imagine that it's plain from watching me bounce up and down on my toes as I get dressed that I have a bit of mischief in mind.
"It is obvious from the raffish glint in your eye that you are up for a bit of fun, Miss, and I hope you have it. I only hope that you will also exercise some caution," he says, and I think I hear a note of fatherly concern in his tone.
"Oo-ow, don't ye worry yerself, 'Iggins, luv," I crows. "An old Cheapside scrapper loike Jacky Faber ain't loikely t' get 'er arse in no trouble that she can't get it out of."
"Hmmm ...," says Higgins, unconvinced and disapproving. "Very colorful language, Miss. It is not surprising that you were on the stage."
It warn't the stage that taught me to talk like that, Higgins, it was the streets of London. I peel off my white stockings and pull on the black pair. Then I stand and Higgins opens the corset like a clamshell and I step into it and the sides of it clutch my ribs. He laces it up behind and says, "Deep breath now, Miss," and I puff up and hold it, and he puts his knee in the middle of my back and pulls hard on the cords, which takes all the middle part of me—my ribs and half my guts—and shoves it all up to my top and makes my waist about twelve inches around and then he ties the cords tight. I can breathe out then. Now he holds out my ruffled-front white shirt, the one with the lace at the sleeves, and I put my arms into it. He buttons up the back and then holds open my dark green skirt and I step into it. He tucks the shirt into the waist of it and then cinches it up in back, under the folds of cloth that are gathered into pleats and fall down off my tail. Then he puts the strap of the lace collar around my neck, up high under my chin so that the lace spills down over my chest, and makes it fast. Last comes the deep maroon jacket with its stiff gray lapels that curve out and turn back, the buttonholes through which Higgins has threaded a lieutenant's narrow gold lace.