I suggest you go home, Shona. It is unbecoming for you to be in town unattended.’
Meeting his exacting eyes, Shona felt her face burn at his public censure. ‘I was about to do just that, Antony, until I saw the ship. I simply had to be here when it docked.’
Antony turned from her and faced the newcomers, his disagreeable scowl quickly replaced by a smile of welcome.
With sharp, cold eyes Carmelita surveyed Shona’s flushed face, taking in her unbound hair and dishevelled appearance at a glance. She leaned over the side of the carriage to speak to her with her eyes narrowed like a cobra about to strike. ‘Just look at you, Shona—you are inappropriately dressed and your hair is all over the place,’ she said with quiet reproach, her voice heavily accented with Spanish and her eyes as dark and cold as a Scottish loch.
‘That’s because I’ve been riding, Carmelita.’
‘Madam,’ Captain Fitzgerald said coolly, ‘the young lady is not deserving of criticism. She is by far the comeliest maid I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.’
Carmelita opened her mouth to utter a harsh rejoinder, but seeing the hard look in the captain’s clear eyes, she closed it quickly. She smiled a bitter smile, tempted to inform him that Shona McKenzie was the Devil’s own child, but thought better of it. Shielding her face from him with her parasol, she continued scolding her sister-in-law. ‘You’re growing quite impossible, Shona!’
‘I’ll try to be better,’ she promised in a matter-of-fact way.
Carmelita’s cold stare stabbed Shona with deadly equality. ‘Are you mocking me?’
‘Of course not, Carmelita. I wouldn’t dream of it.’ The best way to deal with her sister-in-law, Shona found, was to ignore her when possible and treat her with cool civility when not.
Carmelita gave her one of her dangerous looks. ‘You seem to have a predilection for mixing with seamen and the common folk. It is not how a well-brought-up young lady should behave—how your brother wants you to behave. You are nothing but a liability. How dare you embarrass Antony in this manner. You really should know better.’
Shona tossed her head, her chin thrust out with defiance. Certainly she owed it to Antony to treat Carmelita with polite deference, but filial duty only went so far. Antony said his wife was headstrong, which, Shona thought with asperity, was too nice a word for the woman. Grasping, shrewish and on occasion even vicious was how she would best describe her.
‘Please leave it, Carmelita,’ she replied with chilling politeness, returning her attention to Antony, who was introducing himself to Captain Fitzgerald. ‘I hardly need you to remind me how to behave. I answer to my brother, not you.’
‘Don’t be impertinent, Shona. You’ll get yourself talked about.’
‘Is that so? No more than I am already.’
Carmelita seemed to recognise her limit, for she said nothing else on the matter, but the toss of her head with haughty Latin arrogance told Shona that it was not forgotten.
Antony introduced himself and his wife to Captain Fitzgerald and welcomed him to the island. The captain did likewise, presenting his first mate and the reverend—slightly stressing the word reverend.
‘Aye,’ Singleton explained with a merry twinkle in his eye as the reverend sidled off to the nearest waterfront tavern. ‘The captain considers it necessary to have the crew’s spiritual needs taken care of on a long sea voyage.’
Antony nodded, not having noticed that there was anything untoward in the first mate’s words. ‘And does he keep their spirits up?’
‘Oh, aye—when there’s enough faith aboard.’ And enough rum aboard, he almost added, but thought better of it.
‘When I was informed of your ship entering the cove,’ Antony said, addressing himself to the captain, ‘I thought I would come and greet you myself. I have heard of you, of course. Your name is well known throughout this part of the world.’
The captain raised an eyebrow. ‘Indeed? You flatter me, Mr McKenzie.’
‘Your ship looks as if it has taken a battering.’
‘A few days out of Virginia a storm blew—by ill luck the severity of which was quite exceptional in those latitudes for this time of year. We were blown over two hundred miles off course and lost the convoy we were with. The damage you see is minor and can soon be mended.’
‘Where are you bound?’
‘Martinique—and then London. Rather than delay for another month or even two, awaiting the gathering of another convoy, I will take my chance on being able to catch up with the one I was parted from.’
‘Very wise,’ Antony agreed. A merchant vessel as large as the Ocean Pearl, weighted down with cargo, would be lucky not to attract the attention of privateers of all nations. Not by the score, but by the hundred they swarmed in both European and American waters. In consequence, except for especially fast ships, a system of convoys had long been organised.
‘We’ve put in for a general replenishing—to take on supplies and fresh water—and then we’ll be on our way. I am indebted to you, Mr McKenzie.’
‘You are most welcome, Captain Fitzgerald, and still more so if you will accept my invitation to dine with us tonight—while you give me news of what is happening in the colonies. I do have newspapers delivered from Virginia and London—old news is better than no news at all—but there’s nothing like hearing it first-hand. I shall send a carriage for you and Mr Singleton later.’
Captain Fitzgerald turned away, his gaze again falling on Shona still in the same spot. His eyes narrowed, half-shaded by his lids as he coolly stared at her. Something nagged at the back of his mind, telling him that she represented the worst kind of danger to a freedom-loving bachelor, warning him that there might be repercussions should he accept McKenzie’s offer to dine at his house, but she was so damned lovely he ignored the warnings.
Shona straightened her back, her chin moving slightly upwards in an effort to break the spell he wove about her with his eyes.
He threw her a salute, bowing ever so slightly, then headed off towards the town.
Without waiting for Antony to order her to be gone, Shona turned her horse about and headed in the direction of the house.
* * *
The evening was gentle and warm, with a soft quality known only on the Caribbean islands. Overlooking the bay stood Melrose Hill, the McKenzie residence, the long curved drive lined with huge coconut palms. Melrose Hill was a two-storeyed, sprawling white mansion. It was sheltered by the rise of the land and by the trees surrounding the house. Swathed in native flowers, a wide veranda ran the whole of its length, riotous colours of frangipani and bougainvillaea clambering in profusion over trellising. The sun had already gone down behind the hills so the house was now in shadow, but a number of large lanterns had been lit along the veranda.
On entering a wide, airy hall, Zack was impressed. A long, crystal chandelier was suspended from the lofty ceiling, the shimmering prisms setting the hall aglow with myriad dancing rainbows.
The house smelled of resin and wax polish. Through the
