Microsoft Word - Sherwood, Valerie - Nightsong by kps Page B

burst out. "He couldn't have planned it! After all, how could Monsieur du Monde have known that Gilly would run down the street and trip and fall down right in front of me?"
    "Yes," he mused. "A fortunate fall, was it not? I wonder how she happened to do that
    ...." He raised his voice. "Gilly, you can come out now. I can see your eyes shining in the crack of the pantry door."
    Reluctantly Gilly opened the door. She looked sulky, and Carolina gave her an angry look. "If you eavesdrop on us, Gilly, I will have to send you away," she said sharply.
    Gilly, furious at being caught up in her spying, promptly burst into tears and ran from the room. Kells's hard gaze followed her flight. "Better find the wench another place,"
    he advised.
    "No, I will give her another chance," Carolina said. "But tell me, why would the gossips have it that you were trying to buy a plantation along the Cobre?"
    "Because I was."
    "But I thought you said-"
    "I said I was not inthe process of buying one, not that I did not wish to."
    "Oh." She spoke the word soundlessly.
    "Well, do not look so alarmed. I had thought it would be a simple matter since money is offered to me freely for buccaneering ventures. But oddly enough, I can find no backers for this enterprise. Men are willing to risk fortunes with me in the hope of immediate and
    dazzling gain, but they are quick to point out that buying land and making it pay is a long road." "You could do it!" she said hotly, on his side now and quite forgetting that she had been against the project.
    "Oh, I am sure of it. But men with money to invest sheer off from it. It would seem that my longevity as a buccaneer is not highly regarded. Oh, it is couched in fine words, but it is explained to me that I must pay cash." He gave her a wry look.
    They had finished their dinner now and were sipping the strong ruby-red wine of Portugal-port, named for the town of Oporto from whence it came. Her silver eyes mirrored her astonishment.

    "But you have ceased buccaneering. Everyone knows that!" "No one believes it.
    Perhaps even I do not." He shook his head tiredly.
    "Then ignore them and pay cash!" she exploded. "Forget these other men who only seek to profit on your dangerous work."
    There was a rueful look in the gray eyes that looked down upon her tenderly. She looked so lovely there in her white gown with her breast heaving with indignation--so innocent, so untouched. And the effect somehow heightened by the barbarity of that opulent necklace, glowing like red coals and white fire.
    She caught her breath. "Surely there is no lack of money? I mean-"
    "All the elegance that you see around you?" His lips twisted in a wry smile. "Ours is an expensive household to keep up."
    "But you have so much gold," she protested. "So much-" "Held safe for me in England, yes, but only I can touch it. And you do not want me to go there." She sat down suddenly, feeling that her legs would not support her. "No, I do not!" Carolina said faintly.
    "And yet, Christabel"-his gaze upon Carolina was wistful-"I must do something, else we will have to sell this house."
    "Then sell the house!"
    "No, I do not propose to do that." His face was stem. "In the first place it would be dangerous. If the feeling is noised abroad that I am slipping downward, there would be those who might be bold enough to try to sell me to the Spaniards for fifty thousand pieces of eight."
    She had forgotten that! "What do you propose to do?" she asked in a small voice.
    "I propose," he said, spacing his words, "to resume my profession. The world sees me as a buccaneer-by God, I will be one!"
    "Oh, no," she said unhappily. "I couldn't stand it-worrying, wondering where you are, whether you are still alive!"
    He gave Carolina a moody look. "You will have to stand it," he said shortly, "if we are to survive." And then he added more kindly, "It is either that or England, Christabel. I must have money-and soon."
    And she had sent away the necklace that would have saved him!