The Legend of the Gypsy Hawk, page 1
Titles in the Pirates of Ile Sainte Anne series:
The Legend of the Gypsy Hawk
Copyright © 2016 Sally Malcolm
First published by the author as Beyond the Far Horizon
Published 2016 by Choc Lit Limited
Penrose House, Crawley Drive, Camberley, Surrey GU15 2AB, UK
www.choc-lit.com
The right of Sally Malcolm to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 9HE
EPUB ISBN 978-1-78189-217-6
MOBI ISBN 978-1-78189-218-3
For my children, Jess and Ben
Contents
Pirates of Ile Sainte Anne series
Title page
Copyright information
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Part Two
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Epilogue
Historical Note
About the Author
More from Choc Lit
Introducing Choc Lit
Acknowledgements
With thanks to Laura, my brilliant critique partner, and the wonderful people at Choc Lit for taking a chance on this book.
To Choc Lit Tasting Panel members: Heidi, Elke, Janice, Sigi, Heather M, Siobhan, Sarah C, Caroline, Jane O and Liz R – thank you for giving my manuscript your approval.
Prologue
1848
Midshipman Samuel Reed went about his business with a grumble on his lips and tender thoughts of home and hearth in his head. Too many years he’d been at sea and he’d long felt Her Majesty – God bless her – could do without his lowly services in her vast merchant fleet. Especially on days such as this, shrouded in an infernal fog, made worse by the belching smoke from the Empire Harmony’s funnels, and the cold creeping into his bones. Cursed by passengers, too – French ones.
One in particular, surly and full of rebellion, had caught his eye. Trouble, Reed thought, definite trouble. Not that it was any of his concern. Bloody students paid their way and who was he to judge them? If they wanted to raise merry hell in their own blasted land he’d not argue, so long as they didn’t try to export their nonsense to British shores. For that, he’d box their sodding ears and not ask Her Majesty – God bless her – for a penny in return.
Still, it was a cold day to be at sea and he could damn them for their part in that, if nothing else.
He stopped by the rail and blew into his numbed hands, his breath doing little to fend off the January chill. It so happened that the rebellious young Frenchman who’d been preying on his mind stood just a few yards beyond, gazing thoughtfully out into the fog as if he might see through it, were he to stare hard enough.
‘If you’re looking for France, lad, you’re looking the wrong way.’
The boy turned, milk-faced in the cold air, dark eyes defiant. ‘I see something,’ he said in heavily-accented English, indicating the water with a languid wave of his hand.
Reed glanced at the flat sea. ‘A man?’
‘Non, un coffre.’
‘A what?’
‘A …’ He frowned and made a rough square with his hands. ‘Like a … box?’ He glanced down again, leaning over the rail, and pointed. ‘Voyez! Là!’
Reed looked, mildly surprised to see that the boy was right. An old sea chest floated in the water, bobbing up against the side of the ship. ‘Jetsam,’ he said, looking back at the lad. ‘Lost cargo of some kind.’
He murmured a reply, gazing down at the water – a question, perhaps, in his foreign tongue.
‘Don’t know what you’re saying, mate,’ Reed grumbled. ‘Speak the Queen’s bloody English aboard her own ship.’
The boy cast him an irritated glare, and then flashed a disarming smile that had the look of the devil about it. ‘Treasure.’ He nodded to the box. ‘I think it is treasure.’
Reed laughed. ‘Twenty years at sea, mate, and I ain’t seen no bloody treasure. Especially not in the English Channel.’
The lad’s smile turned crafty, a mere ivory glint in the cold light. ‘Perhaps, monsieur, it is because you have not dared to look?’
Reed scratched his head and in the foggy silence heard a soft thump of iron on wood as the box drifted against the hull. His eyes met those of the boy and saw a challenge there – a challenge and a flare of danger, an invitation to adventure. The boy said no more, turning back to the misty sea, but Reed found himself needing to prove his mettle to this strange young lad.
‘Harper! Kendall!’ he shouted. ‘Find a grapple and get yourselves aft!’
It took several attempts and much cursing to haul the chest aboard, but eventually it sat, dark and dripping, on the deck of the Empire Harmony. It was old, that much was sure, though not rotted, as a man might expect of a chest that had been long in the water. Its iron bands were not rusted, its lock gleaming wetly as if newly cast.
The boy crouched before it, running long-fingered hands over the lid before hefting the lock. It was ornately carved and the sight caused Reed to draw a deep breath, blinking twice to ensure his old eyes weren’t playing tricks in the deepening gloom. ‘Let me see that,’ he said, kneeling at the lad’s side and taking the lock from his hands. ‘Bloody hell, look. What do you see?’
The lad was puzzled, and ran a slender finger over the intricate engraving. ‘Here is a … dauphin?’
‘Aye, a dolphin,’ Reed said. ‘And the other’s a hawk, see? By the shape of the wing.’ He wiped a shaky hand across his mouth and sat back on his heels. ‘Bloody hell.’
The French lad frowned. ‘I do not understand.’
‘A hawk and a dolphin, boy. Do you not know the tale of Amelia Dauphin and the captain of the Gypsy Hawk?’
The lad shook his head, his attention drifting back to the chest. He took the lock from Reed’s hand and as he turned it over it broke in two. No, it didn’t break so much as the two halves seemed to fly apart and the lock was open.
Reed said nothing. No one spoke as the lad carefully lifted the lid, not even the sailors who stood around them in a curious half circle.
There was no sparkle of gold, no treasure, and as he peered into the chest Reed saw nothing but a book. Letters on the cover glinted in the dull light as the boy lifted it out. ‘My God,’ Reed whispered. ‘The Articles of Agreement – I thought it just legend.’
The lad’s dark eyes lifted to meet his. ‘What is this?’
‘Freedom, lad. So they say. Mark it well.’
‘Liberté?’ The boy frowned, his slender fingers prising open the book. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘something is written here.’
Reed peered over and saw words inside the cover, written in a curling, flamboyant script. The gentry must come down, and the poor shall wear the crown. Beneath them were inscribed the initials A.D. and Z.H. He let out a slow breath, awestruck. ‘It’s true then …’
‘What is true? What is—?’ The lad stopped abruptly, looking out to sea, eyes wide. ‘Ô mon dieu …’ He lifted a shaking hand and pointed into the mist. ‘C’est quoi?’
Reed sucked in a freezing breath and stared. ‘Bloody hell,’ he murmured, scrambling to his feet. ‘Holy mother and child.’ Out of the murk loomed the shadow of an old tall ship, her sails dancing in a phantom breeze, before she was swallowed by the fog once more.
‘Bateau fantôme!’
‘Aye, la
The boy looked at him, wide eyed. ‘Notre mort?’
‘No.’ He felt a strange elation. ‘No, lad. Not our death. For bugger me blind, but I say we just glimpsed the Gypsy Hawk herself.’
The boy frowned into the mist, but there was nothing to see. ‘That is ill fortune?’
‘No, son. Quite the opposite.’ Midshipman Samuel Reed was sailor enough not to doubt tradition, nor what some folk called superstition. The Gypsy Hawk had not been seen these fifty years or more, not that he’d heard, and for her to appear now, at the very moment this strange lad unlocked the Pirate Queen’s chest, was a providential sign indeed.
He glanced over his shoulder at the frightened faces of the crew and realised that he alone knew what it was they’d seen – and even he, old salt that he was, scarce believed his eyes. It was time to pass the story on.
‘Come then,’ he said, turning around. ‘Come then, boys, listen and I’ll tell you a tale. ’Twas told to me by my old da, who spent fifty year in the merchant marine, and to him by his da and so forth back to the days when the edges of the map were still sketchy and the world were a bigger place.’ He beckoned the men closer and reached for his pipe. ‘Come then, and I’ll tell you the tale of the Gypsy Hawk and her wily captain – the infamous Zachary Hazard …’
Part One
1716
But soon the sun with milder rays descends
To the cool ocean, where his journey ends;
On me Love’s fiercer flames forever prey,
By night he scorches, as he burns by day.
‘SUMMER’, ALEXANDER POPE
Chapter One
Possessed of the devil’s own luck, and a dangerous beauty to match, Captain Zach Hazard might have rivalled the angels themselves, were it not for the pleasure he took in more earthly matters.
Namely women, dice and rum.
Amelia watched him from the rigging of the Sunlight, letting her bare feet swing as she perched on the topsail yard. Hazard had docked at Ile Sainte Anne that morning, ghosting in with the dawn, unheralded and arriving, it seemed, out of nowhere. His ship, his beloved Gypsy Hawk, had not been seen on the island for six years and her appearance had set every tongue wagging. The Hawk sat high in the water, clearly empty of plunder to trade, and Zach stood on the docks in deep conversation with Jean-Pierre, her father’s first mate.
Amelia couldn’t see Zach’s eyes – his face was lost beneath the stark shadow of his hat – but the wind caught at his hair and the silver ring that glinted in his ear. That same morning breeze also carried a snatch of conversation.
‘… has matters of business to attend, but he will see you at noon.’ That was Jean-Pierre, arms folded and stubborn; he’d never liked Zach Hazard.
‘I’m not here for the good of my bloody health! Tell him it’s urgent.’
Amelia smiled; his voice stirred a memory. Last time he’d sailed in their waters she’d been little more than a girl. He’d pulled coins from her ears and made her laugh with his outrageous stories, but that deep, smoke-scarred voice had touched on something new and blossoming. At the time she’d not known it for what it was; now, at one-and-twenty, she understood why his name alone made the women of Ile Sainte Anne giggle.
Not that she would giggle. She was Amelia Dauphin, daughter of James Dauphin and captain of the Sunlight. She was the youngest captain in her father’s fleet and anyone who said she’d not earned it was welcome to test her mettle with cutlass or pistol. She would not giggle over a man.
Down on the dock, Zach Hazard was getting more heated and aboard the Gypsy Hawk his crew were lining the rail, old Brookes peering down from his work in the rigging. She saw no drawn blades, but in the slow morning heat the air began to crackle.
Time, she decided, to intervene.
Slipping off the yard, she scrambled down the mast and landed with a soft thud on the deck. Her first mate lifted a sleepy eyelid from where he’d been dozing by the helm and started to rise, but she waved a pacifying hand. ‘No trouble,’ she said. ‘I’m heading up to my father’s house.’
With that she trotted down the gangplank and onto the rickety quay. Her pistol was tucked into her belt, her powder dry, and the boards were smooth under her bare feet – it was a good morning to be alive. ‘Zach Hazard,’ she called as she drew close. Down at his level the shadow beneath his hat was not so dark and she could see his face more clearly.
Had she not been Amelia Dauphin, youngest captain in the pirate fleet of Ile Sainte Anne, she might have been startled by that face, beautiful despite sin-black eyes and a sardonic mouth. But she was made of sterner stuff and met his frank appraisal with a bow. ‘Amelia Dauphin,’ she said. Then, as an aside to Jean-Pierre, ‘My father has asked you to attend him; I can handle Captain Hazard.’
The two men exchanged a glance and Amelia found herself blushing without entirely knowing why.
‘As you wish, mademoiselle,’ Jean-Pierre said. But, under his breath, he grumbled his disbelief.
‘Nonsense, is it?’ she shot back. ‘Casse-toi, Jean Pierre! And it’s Captain Dauphin, to you.’
Jean-Pierre glared and didn’t deign to reply, still muttering into his grizzled beard. She watched his back as he left, just in case. When she eventually returned her attention to Hazard, he was regarding her with undisguised surprise.
She laughed. ‘Do you not remember me, Captain? You used to pull coins from my ears.’
For a moment he said nothing; then surprise changed to humour and something silver flashed in the sunlight. ‘You keep them there still,’ he said, taking a coin as if from behind her ear and spinning it in the air.
She snatched it with a grin and tucked it inside her shirt, watching the way his eyes widened. ‘You’ll need better tricks than that, Captain Hazard, to impress me now.’
‘And what sort of tricks impress you these days, Miss Dauphin?’
‘It’s Captain Dauphin.’ She pushed past him a little closer than necessary and then turned around, watching him as she walked backward along the dock. ‘Would you like to see my ship? She’s called the Sunlight. Or do you think me too much of a child to captain a ship?’
His bold gaze drifted down her body and his mouth curled at one corner. ‘There’s nothing of the child about you now, Amelia. How long’s it been since we last crossed swords? Six years, by my reckoning.’
‘We never crossed swords,’ she said, puzzled.
His smile was liquid gold and not even remotely innocent. ‘We may yet, however. I’ve a mind to think you’re as wily as your old dad, and with those pretty lips a world more perilous to an honest pirate like myself.’
‘Honest!’ she snorted, turning away from his gaze. A girl might lose herself there and Amelia had no desire to be lost, especially not to a man with a string of broken hearts in every port and his own untouched by any softer feeling. She knew Zachary Hazard far too well to succumb to his charms.
He followed her along the dock, his loose-limbed stride reined in to keep pace with her. ‘Much as I’d love to see your ship,’ he said, ‘I’ve urgent business with your father, no matter what Jean-Paul—’
‘Pierre. It’s Jean-Pierre.’
‘No matter his name, Amy!’ He was impatient. She’d never known him impatient before. Zach always carried with him the laconic heat of the Spanish Main, a far-off place she’d never seen with her own eyes but, through him, had come to know as a land of rum-filled nights and easy profit. That he would be impatient now – and come to them with the Hawk empty and lean – spoke of trouble.
‘Do you bring ill-tidings?’ She looked at him askance, saw the narrowing of his eyes and the tightening of his lips.
‘What I bring is for your father’s ears only.’
‘I’m a captain in his fleet. I’m—’
‘It’s between him and me, Amelia. Leave it now.’
Frustrated, she kept her mouth shut and they walked in silence along the dock until they reached the narrow path leading up to her father’s house on the cliffs. No doubt Jean-Pierre had gone ahead to betray her interference, but she knew her father well and doubted she’d be scolded. He loved Zach like a son, an errant son perhaps, but a son nonetheless, and she knew he’d be delighted to see him despite Jean-Pierre’s dark mutterings.
