Chapter 17
They tore up floorboards. Nothing. They searched the beams. Nothing. They started on the lean-to. Alexandra climbed up in the rafters and opened a box before Nicholas could stop her. He folded his arms in front of him, waiting to weather the storm.
“Nicholas! You were aware of this fabric all the time and let me gallivant around with nothing on. How dare you.”
He surveyed her from head to toe. “I like the way you look.”
She burst out laughing and held a blue cotton up in front of her, smoothing it with her hands. “You are incorrigible, Lord Nicholas. I should rain a hundred curses on your head. I’ll get even. To think, I will make all kinds of dresses for myself and be covered from head to toe.”
He grimaced, clearly not liking the idea.
She huffed and carried the box into the cottage. “Would serve you right for lying to me.”
He followed her. “I didn’t lie. You asked me if there was a chest of fabric. The material was in a box.”
She lifted several of the fabrics up for close examination, and then narrowed her eyes, looking him up and down. “Your breeches are in tatters. For misleading me with your dance of words, you will be tailoring your own pants.”
He grabbed her from behind and tossed her on the bed. “How about we walk around like Adam and Eve?”
She put a hand on his chest. “What about the treasure?”
“To hell with the treasure. You enticed me that whole climb up the cliff.”
“I didn’t think you noticed.”
He didn’t answer and hungrily crushed his mouth to hers, his gut ablaze with need. He suckled her breast through her shift and she groaned, circling his arousal with her hand. He cupped a hand beneath her bottom, tilted her hips and buried himself inside her, as deeply as he could and let go of his seed. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She brushed a sweaty curl from his brow, the treasure hunt forgotten for the time being as they lay side by side.
A moon, grown to half, hopscotched over fast-moving grey clouds. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, weariness enclosing him like a vice. He tried not to think of the endless problems they faced ahead. It was good she couldn’t get pregnant. Childbirth brought complications, even death. He could not imagine a life without her. Rain pattered against the roof and he closed the shutters he had restored. The wind was already picking up.
Every day, they watered the gardens and everything grew rich and fine under Alexandra’s administrations. Nicholas leaned toward her until his mouth was a hairsbreadth from her. “Do you desire my kiss, Alexandra Rutland?”
To his amazement, she shook her head. “No.”
He grinned, understanding he had the ability to befuddle her when he wanted to get out of work.
“Liar,” he said, rubbing his lower lip against hers.
Alexandra huffed. “I know exactly what you are doing. We have to finish the watering.”
The tip of his tongue emerged, and with a feather light lick, he tasted her lips. Salty and sweet. “No?”
“Certainly not.”
He nipped her lower lip with his teeth and she shivered.
“Nicholas.” She pushed him away, and in that light of crystallized time, her face brightened with sudden and striking excitement. “I know where the treasure is.”
“Not again. I’m not spending my whole life digging in the dirt. That lunatic, Sharp, has his treasure buried in the sands of time, far from our reach…that’s if it really exists.”
She grabbed a shovel from the shed and reached the corner of the garden. “This is where Captain Sharp died, Nicholas. He could have died in the comfort of his bed. No. He chose to die here because it was where he buried his treasure.”
Nicholas scoffed and took the shovel from her. He stabbed the dirt, spooning the soil in a heap. “Dead men tell no tales,” he muttered.
After ten minutes of digging, the shovel clanged and it wasn’t rock he’d hit. Alexandra dropped to her knees, and eagerly swept away the earth with her hands.
“Dig. This is the treasure.”
They scooped and scraped, a pile of loam growing high from their efforts. A trunk was cleared and Nicholas hauled it from a hole. She reached to open it.
“Wait,” said Nicholas. “There is another trunk.”
Alexandra squealed. She scrambled down into the hole and helped Nicholas pry it free. He heaved the trunk next to the other.
“A third.” Alexandra clapped her hands and climbed back down in the hole.
“Don’t be disappointed if there is nothing valuable inside.” Nicholas brushed the sweat from his brow and dirt smeared across his face.
She bit her lip, the quest of the unknown and at last unearthing what they had been searching for.
“Don’t open them yet. Let me haul them in the cottage.”
Inside the cottage he blew out a breath and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Again, Alexandra, don’t be disheartened if we have been duped by Captain Sharp.”
“Hurry, Nicholas.”
With a pick, he cracked open the lock on the first trunk and swung back the lid. “Indeed.”
She stared wide-eyed for a full two seconds. Gold doubloons, brilliant ingots, winking jewels, silver coins, dazzling pearls, gold plates and goblets. “My God, this is more than the King’s treasury.”
“Definitely gains from a Spanish haul. But they can’t all be full of such treasure, can they?”
Nicholas cracked open the remaining two trunks and threw back the lids.
In a twinkling of the eye, pure energy boomed around the cottage. Alexandra whirled, her arms extended from her sides, and Nicholas’s laughter became the sunbeam of her soul. He picked her up and twirled her around.
Out of breath, he put her down. “You were right about everything.”
He scooped up strings of pearls and placed them around her neck.
She reached for a crown and steadied it on his head. “Hail, King Nicholas.”
He tumbled her onto the bed. “Your faith and persistence paid off.”
She placed her palm on his chest and pushed him back. “It isn’t right. None of this. We cannot keep the treasure. It belongs to Lady Jane.”
“Lady Jane gets it all, now let’s attend to more important things.” His crown fell over his brow, she lifted it off and tossed it into the chest. He was hot, hard and ready when she scrambled on top of him, her pearls teasing his chest and her hair veiling them when she leaned over for a kiss.
Nicholas eyed her with the slightest hint of a smile. “A bold wench, I have.”
A signal cannon boomed in the distance. She scrambled off him. Heart thumping, Nicholas crossed the room, picked up the telescope and focused on the horizon. “A schooner. And a British flag.”
Nicholas dropped the scope where it clattered on the table and grabbed for the tinderbox. Books crashed off the shelves to the floor.
“Run, Alexandra.”
She was already sprinting down the mountain. He passed her, leaping over vines and fallen palm logs. He tripped on a root, somersaulted mid-air, landed on his feet and kept running.
“I can’t believe this,” said Alexandra. “Hurry, Nicholas, get the signal fire lighted before they leave.”
Nicholas skidded in front of the pile of gathered driftwood. He pulled out the protected coconut husk fibers and struck the tinderbox.
Alexandra joined him. Breathless she knelt beside him. “Hurry, Nicholas.”
He struck the tinderbox several times. In the breeze sparks darted around the fibers.
“Damn.”
Alexandra cupped her trembling hands around the tinder. He struck the flint to metal again and again. The sparks caught to the fibers. He breathed onto the embers, adding small tinder and glancing over his shoulder at the ship.
“Dear God, will the ship leave before it sees our signal?”
Sweating, Nicholas placed more dry wood on the fire careful not to put it out. “There is no way I will allow that ship to leave without us.”
The fire roared to life. Alexandra placed dry leaves on the inferno. “The smoke will be more visible to the ship.”
Nicholas and Alexandra waved their arms and shouted to get the ship’s attention. The ship blast her cannon in acknowledgement, the reply reverberated up the coast.
Nicholas picked Alexandra up and twirled her around. “We have been saved.”
Toes in the lapping surf, they waited for a small boat to be rowed ashore. Nicholas caught hold of the bow. Dressed in a navy frockcoat with gold trim, the captain stepped from the boat.
“I am Lord Nicholas Rutland. We have been cast ashore for a year.”
The British captain stood thunderstruck. Extraordinary. I can’t believe the miracle of fate that drags me from the scouring the Caribbean and puts me in your presence. Truly extraordinary.”
“At your service,” Nicholas bowed.
“I am Captain Charles Sawyer and charged with finding you. Months ago, we discovered flotsam from the Santanas and assumed you perished with the ship. But your father, Duke Rutland said not to give up.”
“My father is alive?” His heart stopped. Had he heard Captain Sawyer right?
“Yes, very alive and well. He ordered a complete search of the islands for you. After that terrible debacle at Belvoir where the laboratory blew up with the intent to kill your brother and his Lordship, a kidnapper’s note was found, saying you were sent to Brazil. There was an eyewitness to your abduction on the docks of London. We traced you to flotsam discovered in the Greater Antilles never believing we would find you. Lo and behold, here you are.”
“My father is alive?”
“Yes, Lord Rutland. He never gave up hope of finding you.”
“My brother, Anthony? Any news on my sister?”
“Your brother is alive and well. Your sister is another matter. The Governor-General of Nassau informed me that as far as he knew, Lady Abigail Rutland, was alive. She had been a guest of his but kidnapped by barbaric American Colonials during an invasion of his city. He surmised there would be an exchange for her since England was at war with the Colonies.”
Nicholas made a mental note, impatient to get home to secure the exchange.
Grinning from ear to ear, Nicholas clapped Captain Sawyer on the back, shaking his hand.
The captain cleared his throat, his eyes scrutinizing behind Nicholas.
Nicholas turned. Alexandra’s lack of attire had come under the inspection of Captain Sawyer and the crew that had rowed him to shore. Alexandra blushed. He shoved her behind him.
“This is Alexandra, another English subject who was kidnapped with me and has suffered terrible deprivations. If you could give us safe passage back to England…”
“I would be most happy to accommodate you and Miss Alexandra, but your father gave express orders that if you were found to take you to Nassau, Bahamas where you will be escorted home by a flotilla of His Majesty’s ships. You will have better protection.”
Suddenly realizing that this was the end of their sojourn on the island, Alexandra dragged her feet to the cottage. She slammed down the trunk lids and secured them so not one of the crew would know the contents. Who knew the avarice of men?
She swept the cottage, made the bed, and washed the dishes which Nicholas said was a waste of time. She wanted the memories that warmed her up inside, yet those same memories now tore her apart. The oversized wool gown Captain Sawyer had procured scratched at the neck and overheated her skin. Would she ever get used to wearing clothes again?
After packing shells and other trivial memorabilia collected on the island, she closed the shutters and the door. She had come to the island with little and would leave with little. The rest of the contents were to be left behind in case some other unfortunate soul was castaway.
She was halfway down the mountain when she remembered Captain Sharp’s diary and locket. Running back, she glanced around the cottage for a last look, touching the table where they ate their meals, running her fingers along the bookshelves and chess set, and smoothing the quilt over their bed. For Alexandra, the tides of change reminded her that life was an unknown path marked with twists and turns.