"Anyway, everything you can think of is being sent over: more bed linens, extra towels, dishes, pots and pans, cutlery, pillows, candlesticks, candelabra, candles-I was amazed to see all the things they were bringing. Don't you hear the commotion downstairs? Here, step into your bath before it gets cold! I'll close the door."
"Why do you think the governor is doing it?" asked Carolina, as she slid out of her clothes--torn to rags by her experiences-and slipped gratefully into the warm water.
"Why?" Penny said carelessly. "I'm told that Don Diego is some great hero and that he arrived here nearly dead and was brought back to life in the governor's house. I suppose the governor is proud of his achievement of bringing someone back from the dead."
"Or perhaps," said Carolina carefully, "he thinks that Don Diego might one day marry his daughter."
"That's possible, too," said Penny, stretching her long arms and throwing herself down on the bed. "I'm told he treats him like a son."
"Son-in-law," Carolina said woodenly.
Penny looked at her with bright interest. "Do I detect an interest in Don Diego for yourself? He's certainly gorgeous!"
"Don Diego and I have come to an understanding," she told Penny stiffly, "He will sleep at this end of the hall and I will sleep at the other."
"Oh, but it's such a short distance between!" laughed Penny. "So you told him how things were going to be, did you?"
"No, it was his idea," Carolina said truthfully. She reddened, remembering how she had lain in his arms.
"Indeed?" Penny's russet brows shot up. "Don Diego .has fallen in my estimation,"
she said. "He looked to me to have more blood than that"
"He has plenty of blood," said Carolina. "I think-it was something I said."
"Oh, and what was that?" demanded Penny.
Carolina, already sudsy, stood up and poured water from a rinsing pitcher over herself before she spoke. "I can't remember," she said dismissively. Penny would: hoot with laughter if she knew his decision had come about after Carolina asked, Where do we sleep?
"Here, let me help you with that." Penny got up and took the rinsing pitcher away from Carolina and poured water carefully over Carolina's back. "Dinner will be on the table any minute," she reported. "I think you'd better not take too much time with your toilette. We wouldn't want to keep Don Diego waiting!"
Carolina didn't answer. Where Don Diego was concerned, she was very torn. She wanted to see him and yet she dreaded seeing him-it was all very confusing.
"And now, to get you dressed in these," said Penny, lifting up the chemise as Carolina toweled herself dry. "God's teeth, this was made for a dumpy girl!"
"The governor's daughter," said Carolina.
"She isn't exactly dumpy, though."
"Well-rounded," said Carolina.
"Bursting her stays," amended Penny.
They both laughed.
"She's only fifteen," said Carolina. "She still may grow." "But in which direction?"
wondered Penny. They laughed again. And that laughter made Carolina feel much better. The tension was released. She was skating on very thin ice and must watch her every step, but somehow, despite everything, her world had improved. And it was all because a man who looked like Kells had entered it. . ..
"Well, the chemise is too short but who'll see it under the petticoat?" said Penny, stepping back critically from a barefoot Carolina.
"I don't care if the petticoat is too short," Carolina said nervously. "But I do hope it isn't too long. I couldn't bear to go around tripping over it."
"You mean you don't sew any better than you did back at Level Green? Well, neither do I-but I've no doubt there'll be expert sempstresses hidden away somewhere in the governor's house!"
But the petticoat turned out to be a shade too short rather than too long. Carolina was very pleased.
"And now the overdress-if it was made for the same woman-should be rather a good fit." As she spoke, Penny was slipping the red voile over Carolina's head.
They both held their breath until the hooks in the back were all fastened. Then:
"It's a fitl" Penny cried, joyfully.
"It feels a little too tight across the bust," complained Carolina.
"Just give it a tug down." Penny seized the bodice and almost ripped the material with her sharp pull but it did lower the neckline considerably and allowed Carolina's soft breasts to round up delightfully above it.
"I wouldn't pull it up into panniers if I were you," advised Penny, walking catlike around her on her bare feet. "That petticoat leaves something to be desired. I mean, it's just plain yellow linen, and yet glimpsed through the folds of red voile as you move-"
"It will look like something aflame," guessed Carolina, whirling about.
"Yes," Penny said, adding gravely, "You look lovely, Carolina." And woefully distressed, she might have added. For all you're putting a brave face on things.
Suddenly she noticed the butcher knife lying on the floor. "Where did that thing come from? It belongs in the kitchen."
"I brought it upstairs when Juana wasn't looking," Carolina said soberly. "I thought I might need it as a weapon. That was-before I met Don Diego," she added. "In fact, I dropped it when I saw him."
Penny blinked at her. "That must have been a shock to him," she murmured.
"Coming home to find you waiting for him with a knife in your hand!"
"Well-I didn't understand," mumbled Carolina, unwilling to explain.
"Remember to smile when you go downstairs," instructed Penny. "We're better off than the lot we came with, you know!"
"Yes." Carolina shuddered. "I hate to think what will happen to some of them tonight."
Penny's russet brows elevated. "Whatever happens to them," she said succinctly, "it will be no worse than the things that happened to them all the time on New Providence,"
Carolina looked up sharply at the inflection in Penny's voice. "You mean-"
"You don't want to hear about the things that happened on New Providence," Penny said softly. Her impish grin flashed. "Not everyone was smart enough to accept matelotage!"
A maid came to the door and stuck her head in to announce that dinner was ready.
"What did she say?" sighed Penny. "How I wish I'd .paid more attention to learning Spanish when Ramona Valdez lived with us! I can't understand a word that's said in the governor's house!"
"She said it's time to go down to dinner," Carolina explained. "Come with me, Penny, and I'll present you to Don Diego."
Penny shrugged and together the two girls trailed downstairs.
Dusk had fallen-the swift violet dusk of the tropics.
The candles had been lit and burned golden in the heavy iron candelabra the governor had sent over. A the man in black and silver who stood with his booted feet wide apart at the foot of the tile stairway, the two girls presented a picture of sharp contrasts: the tall statuesque redhead crisply gowned in black and white, and the daintier blonde in red voile that floated out over her yellow petticoat. She looked like a candle flame, he thought suddenly. Glowing red and yellow below and with a frostier tip-that was her hair, moonlight-fair in this dusky light.
"Ladies," he said, bowing deeply. "I am honored." Penny beamed at him delightedly.
It had been a long time since a man had made such an elegant leg to her.
Carolina swept him her deepest curtsy. "Penny," she said, speaking in English as she had with him all along. "This is my-my protector, Don Diego Vivar. May I present my sister, Senorita Pennsylvania Lightfoot."
"Rouge," said Penny wickedly.
Don Diego looked blank.
"It is just a nickname," Carolina said hastily. "We call her Penny at home."
"Senorita Penny," said Don Diego gravely, "will you not share our repast with us?The governor," he added, scanning the groaning board, "has sent enough, I believe, for ten. It would founder us to eat all that."
"I would like to, sir," Penny said airily. "But I fear I am expected back to dine with the governor." She turned to wink at Carolina, who hoped it was true. "I hope to see you tomorrow."
She left with skirts billowing, and Don Diego pulled back a chair and seated Carolina.
"You look lovely," he said, and sincerity rang in his voice. "Your buccaneer is a lucky man indeed." "Was,"
corrected Carolina, looking him squarely in the eye. "Was a lucky man."
He studied her as he poured a glass of port wine for her. "And do you wish to publicize the fact that you are now alone?"
"No," Carolina said hastily, deciding to follow his lead on anything that had to do with Kells. "Of course not. I will not speak of it again."
He gave her a contented look from across the table and sipped his port. "I had not thought. Perhaps you would prefer malmsey?"
"You are right," she said. "I would prefer it."
"I shall speak to the governor about it tomorrow," he said. "His wine cellars seem endless. Tell me," he said curiously, "about your life in Tortuga. Or is it Port Royal?"
"Both," Carolina said promptly. "On Tortuga I was very happy, but I did not know it until I left. In Port Royal I was not at all happy but I tried not to show it."
"And why was this?"
"Because my husband-by the fraud and deceit of others-was forced to continue in the buccaneering life which he had already forsworn."
Across from her the dark brows lifted, and a pair of keen gray eyes sparked with interest. "Indeed? Tell me about it."
"It would take a long time to tell you all, but Kells had received a king's pardon when the Marquess of Saltenham, for his own purposes, impersonated Kells and sank some English ships. Later Kells spared the marquess's life-because I asked it. You see my best friend, Reba Tarbell, was in love with the marquess and I did not want him killed. Her father has scads of money and I knew he could easily buy a pardon for the marquess, but Reba's mother hired false witnesses who swore the marquess was innocent, and Kells found himself once again beyond the law,"
"A sad story," he commented. "You have my sympathy." "I do not want your sympathy, sir," she said frankly. "It is your understanding that I desire." "Indeed? I shall endeavor to see that you have it." He turned his attention to the hot spicy food.
Carolina had thought she was hungry but now she toyed with the food on her plate.
There was so much she wanted to know about this man. . . .
"How did you come here?" she asked suddenly. He shrugged. "By chance. All things are on the knees of the gods, senorita-where we go, what we do there. This Kells, was he so good to you, that you miss him so much?" Her eyes brimmed suddenly with tears. "He was my life," she said huskily.
"Am I so much like him, then?" he murmured.
"Looking at you is like looking into a mirror and seeing-him," she said. "Did he speak Spanish too?" "Fluently. Castilian Spanish. He had spent some time in Spain."
He frowned. "Was he long in Spain?"
"He endured terrible things there," she said shortly. "It made him hate all Spaniards."
"Yes." He sighed. "A man in a green suit strikes us and the next man we see wearing a green suit-we strike him."
"It was a little more complicated than that," she said, stiffening.
"I see. You must defend him at all costs-his vices as well as his virtues. Well, that is loyalty. I am beginning to like you very much, Senorita Lightfoot. You have not only beauty-you have qualities."
"Why did you speak to me in English when first you met me?" she shot at him.
He leaned back, smiling lazily. "But I had been told you were English, senorita. Was I to address you in a language you might not understand?"
"But you heard me speak in Spanish at the slave auction-I called out that Penny and I were sisters and not to be separated."
"Forgive me. The roar of the crowd?" he countered smoothly.
"But you must have heard me," said Carolina, vexed. "You were seated on your horse not far away and you were looking straight at me!"
"Ah, you noticed me there." He sounded pleased.
"Of course, I noticed you!" snapped Carolina. "You made yourself conspicuous by being mounted among a crowd of people on food"
"I was preparing to ride up into the hills," he explained. "But I thought better of it when I saw the crowd and then the procession of women being led in. I was puzzled by what was going on."
"I am sure the governor enlightened you!" she said bitterly. "And told you that we were all harlots from New Providencel"
"On the contrary." He leaned forward. "He described you and your sister as 'elegant.'"
He smiled upon her. "And he was right!"
"Looking at you," she said, "I would almost believe Kells had a brother I do not know about."
"Perhaps he does," he said gently. "But that brother is assuredly not myself. Tell me,"
he added in a more curious tone, "did this Kells also dress like me?"
"No," she admitted. "Kells always wore gray. Or almost always. He cared little for clothes."
"Nor I, senorita," he said lightly. "And now you must attempt to do justice to this delicious repast the governor has prepared for us."
Carolina took a bite or two. It gave her strength. She looked up. "Yes, I wondered if you knew just why the governor is doing all this?" she asked frankly. "It seems rather a lot, don't you think?"
His lazy smile deepened. "I think perhaps the governor is more devious than I had imagined. I think he may intend to trick me into folly. . .."
Carolina stared at him. The man had perception and depth. Again like Kells.
"What folly?"
"With a lady," he said with a caressing look at her. "A lady who flames like a candle."
In spite of herself, Carolina felt the color rise to her cheeks. "And why would he do that?" she inquired stiffly.
"Who knows? Perhaps it has suddenly come to him that he has a young daughter whose head could be turned by an older man."
"His daughter is fifteen and if she grows any plumper she may well burst her stays,"
Carolina said with asperity. "Her head could be turned by anyone!"
"Ah, you are harsh in your judgment." But his gray eyes were laughing.