Mistress Below Deck. Helen Dickson

choose from, but when we put in there was an unusually large number of merchantmen. On a suggestion from the merchant and a letter of introduction, I intended going on to Barbados to pick up a cargo of rum and sugar, but Mason was anxious to leave for home.

      ‘I wasn’t on board when the fire on the Night Hawk started and it didn’t occur to me until we were loaded with the cargo meant for the Night Hawk and had left Kingston that he’d been behind it. Under cover of darkness and away from the eyes of the harbour officials, he fired it, knowing there were men on board.’

      ‘Why did you go to the West Indies on that voyage? You’d only just returned from Gibraltar with the Rowena Jane.’

      ‘A lot of money would be changing hands on the voyage to the Indies. I felt it might be better if I were to carry out the negotiations. I didn’t entirely trust Mason and would have got rid of him before sailing, but it was too late to find another captain.’

      ‘When you found out what he’d done, why didn’t you turn back to Jamaica and hand him over to the officials there? Surely that would have been the right thing to do.’

      ‘Had I done that, I’d have had a mutiny on my hands. The crew weren’t for going back to a place where they might have been thrown into gaol. Besides, most of them were behind Mason that night.’

      ‘And how did you come to be shot?’

      ‘At a quayside tavern.’

      ‘Was that where Mr Searle found you?’ He nodded. ‘What happened to his crew was a terrible thing and Jack Mason should have been punished. You can hardly blame Mr Searle for seeking justice and compensation for those who were maimed, but I cannot condone his method of exacting revenge—if that’s what it was,’ she said, feeling a stirring of doubt since his denial.

      Rowena knew the rest, of how the Rowena Jane had put in at Antigua and found its owner alive but a cripple. Deeply affected by this latest turn of events, she spun on her heel and stalked to the door.

      ‘Now where are you off to?’

      ‘To see what has happened to Mr Whelan. You are right, Father. For me to marry well is the only way out of this mess. I’ll get Tobias Searle off our backs if it’s the last thing I do.’

      Unfortunately Mr Whelan didn’t arrive. According to Jane, who had watching from the window, he had been waylaid by the detestable Mr Searle as he approached the house; after they had spoken together, Mr Whelan had walked away.

      Rowena galloped along Falmouth Haven. As she reached higher ground, her dogs, two faithful companions she had reared from pups, raced ahead. They were young and fresh and relieved to be out of the stables, their sleek black shapes pouring over the ground and slipping in and out of the rocks.

      The wind ruffled her hair, tugging it loose from the ribbon. Away from the town she dismounted and left her horse free to nibble the short grass. Sitting on the grey-veined rocks, she clasped her arms around her drawn-up knees, one of the dogs settling beside her. The air was sweet, smelling of the spiky bushes of gorse and tasting of the sea.

      Her gaze did a sweep of Falmouth’s deep harbour beyond the quay. Being the most westerly mail-packet station, with ships stopping on their passage to the Mediterranean, the West Indies and North America and requiring provisions, Falmouth, with its flourishing and increasing trade, was a prosperous, bustling harbour town, full of rich merchants.

      As a merchant trader, her father’s prosperity had always been inextricably linked to the sea, but like every other trader he was always acutely conscious of the dangers that lay just beyond the horizon. Pirate vessels were a constant threat, and because of it he nearly always sailed in convoy with other merchantmen.

      Rowena remembered a time when all over the southern coast, a veritable flotilla of traders and merchants had hoisted their sails and pushed their vessels into the troubled waters of the north Atlantic on trading voyages to Spain, Portugal and the colonies of North America. The hazards of such daring oceanic voyages were considerable, and tempests, hidden reefs and Barbary pirates had taken a grim toll over the previous century.

      Her gaze travelled to where the Rowena Jane was moored. She was saddened by the thought that her father had put it in the hands of a broker. Her eyes moved on to a sloop anchored out in the bay. She looked sleek and fast with tall, raking masts pointing to the sky and its sails neatly furled. A pennant—a bold, bright gold ‘S’ entwined with the letter ‘T’ against a background of bright crimson—flew from its masthead. She stood tall and serene, like a proud queen. A figurehead of a woman graced the head of the ship and the name Cymbeline was carved into the stern.

      She now knew the vessel belonged to Tobias Searle. It was his flagship, just one of many that he owned, and could outgun and outrun most of those who tried to take her.

      Looking inland, she let her eyes dwell on the skeletal, blackened ruins of Tregowan Hall rising high above the trees in distance. Fire had gutted part of the hall ten years ago, its owner, Lord Julius Tregowan, and his wife having perished in the blaze. The Tregowan estate was a prosperous one with vast productive acres. The quiet rural communities in this part of Cornwall flourished on rumours about the family that had lived and died in the great house. Lord Tregowan’s heir, who employed a bailiff to administer the working of the estate, remained a mystery. Some said he lived in Bristol and had never been to Tregowan Hall to look over his inheritance. Whether he eventually came to Cornwall remained to be seen, and meant nothing to her anyway.

      Her thoughts far away, she did not seem to hear his approach until the dogs bristled and growled low in their throats. Turning her head, she looked up, shielding her eyes against the sun’s brightness. A man astride a horse was looking down at her. Her eyes and brain recognised his presence, but her emotions were slow to follow.

      ‘You!’ she said, surprised to see Mr Searle.

      Mocking blue eyes gazed back at her. ‘Aye, Rowena,’ Tobias said, swinging his powerful frame out of the saddle, his boots sounding sharp against the rocks. ‘My apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.’

      Removing his hat, the intruder looked down at her, his face grave, though Rowena noticed one eyebrow was raised in that whimsical way he had and his lips were inclined to curl in a smile. What was he doing up here? she had time to wonder, since he was a long way from his ship.

      His gaze swept the landscape, settling for just a moment on the skeletal chimneys of Tregowan Hall, before coming to rest on the young woman who made no attempt to get up. He was surprised to see that she wore a jacket and breeches and black riding boots more suitable to a male than a female. She lounged indolently against the rock at her back, one of her dogs beside her, her long slender legs stretched out in front of her and crossed at the ankles. She was as healthy and thoughtless as a young animal, sleek, graceful and high-spirited as a thoroughbred, and dangerous when crossed.

      There was also a subdued strength and subtleness that gave her an easy, almost naïve elegance she was totally unaware of. The sun shone directly on the glossy cape of her deep brown hair, which had escaped the restriction of the red ribbon. Few women were fortunate enough to have been blessed with such captivating looks. Her eyes were as clear and steady and calm as the waters he had seen lapping a stretch of tropical sand and were the same exquisite mixture of turquoise, sapphire and green, their colour depending on the light and her mood. In fact, Rowena Golding was blessed with everything she would need to guarantee her future happiness.

      The beauty of her caught his breath, then irritation at her recklessness in being up here alone.

      ‘Have you no sense?’ he chided, sitting with his back to a rock facing her, a knee drawn up and an arm dangling across it. Glancing at one of the dogs reclining some yards away watching him closely, baring its teeth menacingly since it did not know him, he made no move to approach it. ‘Don’t you realise the danger of riding alone up here, where vagabonds and gypsies and all kinds of travellers roam the country looking for work? They would do you serious harm for the pennies in your pocket. What is your father thinking of to allow it?’

      She gave him a haughty