“‘ . . . I nodded, all serious, not believing him for a minute. He was as evil as that Jolly Roger flag they flew on the Revenge. I’m not a stupid girl. I’d always known he had a treasure trove and now I had the proof of it. It was here on Ocracoke. He’d been gone from the castle only forty-five minutes. I was lucky that I happened to notice that. His boots were covered with mud. I want that treasure. I deserve it. My pa sold me to the bastard. Aye, I deserve the treasure.
“‘ . . . I turned thirteen years old that night. But then, not a month later, that ruthless devil got himself shot and stabbed more times than any normal man and that English lieutenant cut off his head, tied it to the bowsprit, and sailed off with it. He left me pregnant with your pa. Your pa was a rotter even when he was a little mite. I swore I’d never tell him about the necklaces. He left me, coming back only years later to bring you to me, Samuel. I sold those necklaces a bit at a time and lived well and your pa asked me again and again how I managed to have such a nice house and servants. I told him I was a whore. He believed that easily enough, the rotter. Samuel, there is a treasure. You’re not stupid. I want to be rich before I die. Find that treasure, Samuel.’”
Maggie said, “Samuel writes that she’s daft even though he’s seen some incredible stones. He believes in the necklaces, but he doesn’t think they’re from Blackbeard’s treasure trove. He says his grandmother is old and has brain rot. But he wants the rest of those stones. When she dies he’ll find them. He can’t leave her until she dies because, he says, he owes her because she took him in and treated him well and they had two servants and he had a tutor.”
“Because of the stones from those necklaces,” the Duchess said quietly.
“What a charming lot,” James said.
“Samuel is Old Tom’s father,” Jessie said. “Old Tom was charming too, James.” She shuddered, the memory of that day sharp and clear in that single moment in her mind. James pulled her close and kissed her ear.
Anthony looked up, his dark blue eyes sparkling. He looked ready to jump to the ceiling. “We know there’s a treasure now. We know it.”
“Blackbeard’s wife,” Jessie said slowly. “ Twelve-year-old Valentine. He gave her two necklaces from his treasure. It’s hidden forty-five minutes from his castle, probably less if he had to take time to dig it up.”
“Where’s this bloody castle?” Sampson asked even as he helped Badger pour out the tea for everyone. There were even lemon cakes.
“It’s been gone a long time,” Jessie said. “When I was a little girl we used to explore the ruins, just piles of rocks even then. Many say there never was a castle. Who knows? If there was, the Ocracokers have used everything over the decades. But I know where it’s said to have been. But what does that matter? Forty-five minutes? Which direction?”
James said, after he’d chewed and swallowed a delicious lemon cake, closed his eyes, and cleared his throat, “It was raining that night. His boots were muddy. We’ll try out every direction from the center of where the castle used to be.”
“Yes,” Marcus said. “Forty-five minutes would in most cases have you swimming in the water. This is possible, it’s just possible that we can discover something.”
“I think we should continue reading,” Maggie said, eyeing the last lemon cake but mournfully shaking her head. “If we don’t find anything else, then we’ll try this castle trek.”
“The villagers will think we’re daft,” James said, and grinned at his wife. “Can’t you just see us all fanning out from the middle of this pile of stones?”
The old house was quiet. No more creaking boards because everyone was in bed, asleep, it was hoped—at least James hoped so because he didn’t doubt for a minute that any sound he or Jessie made would carry to every corner of every room. She was lying on her back, her lawn nightgown covering every inch of her except her toes. Peach satin ribbons were tied just beneath her chin. He couldn’t wait to pull those ribbons loose.
She was saying quietly, “Marcus is right. Most directions that would take someone forty-five minutes to walk would be in the ocean or in Pamlico Sound.”
He came up onto his elbow over her. “It’s a moonlit night.”
“What? Oh yes, James. I can even see the deviltry in your eyes.”
“That’s not deviltry, that’s lust.”
She raised her fingers to caress his cheek. “I don’t know why I haven’t told you that I love you but I will now. I love you, James. I’ve loved you forever, at least since I was fourteen years old.”
He felt panic, utter panic. Love? Certainly he liked her, he enjoyed her body. She made him laugh. He cared mightily about her. But love?
Her smile didn’t budge, but he saw the sadness in her eyes in the soft shadows cast by the moonlight streaming in through the windows. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, but he knew that it did. “I have more love than I’ll ever need. You will love our child, won’t you, James? Despite the fact that it’s my child, too?”
“Don’t be a fool, Jessie. I care for you. A lot. You’re my wife. It’s just that—”
“I know. You won’t forget that both of us love horses, will you? I don’t know if I love children or not, but am I not bound to love our child?”
“There’s no question about it. You’ll be a wonderful mother.”
“And you, James?”
“I’ll be the best of fathers, I promise you. Now, Jessie, I’m almost positive that everyone in this bloody house is asleep. If you promise not to yell, I’ll make love to you.” He lightly touched her breasts. “Are you sore?”
“Yes, but you’re always so gentle.” She closed her eyes as his fingers slowly traced over her breasts beneath the lawn nightgown. She said, all drowsy and interested, “I don’t think Marcus or the Duchess is asleep. You should have seen the looks he was giving her in the parlor.”
“Marcus is out of luck. Don’t you remember? Anthony is sleeping in their bedchamber.” His palm splayed out over her belly. He felt the bulge. His child was inside her.
“No. Anthony is with Badger and Spears. I heard Marcus make a deal with Spears. Charles is with Maggie and Sampson.”
James laughed aloud, then quickly stuffed the sheet corner in his mouth. When he caught his breath, he said, “With a wife like the Duchess, I doubt Marcus will ever let her alone for a day, let alone two days.”
“I wish I were as beautiful as she is, but I’m not, James. I’m sorry. I’m just me.”
“Are you fishing for compliments, Jessie? If so, you don’t do it well. You sound pathetic. Now, be quiet.” He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. Her eyes were open and, as he lowered his head to hers, they crossed. He was laughing again, and this time he didn’t stop. They played, tickling each other, giving kisses that landed in very odd places, enjoying themselves thoroughly until Jessie’s hand suddenly closed over him and he forgot laughter, forgot everything—Blackbeard’s treasure included, his own name included—except her warm hand caressing him.
When he came into her, deep and hard, she sighed, arching up against him, and whispered, “You are magnificent, James.”
He was gone.
At least five minutes had passed before he managed to say, “Jessie, you nearly killed me.”
“If you’re sweet to me,” she whispered as she kissed his sweating shoulder, “I’ll try to kill you again.”
He moaned, his energy returning at a great rate. He said to her later, “You said you’ve loved me since you were fourteen years old. Jessie, you’ve always fought with me, been in constant competition with me, insulted me, even hit me every time you could when we were racing. Surely that isn’t love.”
“It was my mating call, I suppose,” she said, bit his shoulder, and giggled. “I didn’t know what else to do. You thought I was an obnoxious brat, you used to give me those tolerant looks of yours, those looks that said clearly that you wished you could swat me, and I couldn’t bear it. I had to make you react and so I did everything I could to push you
over the edge.”
“You pushed me over the edge more times than I can even remember.” He began to laugh. “The best time though was when you fell through the ceiling of your father’s stable and landed in the hay trough, mashed cucumbers all over your face, and that was just three months before I married you.”
“I hadn’t intended to fall,” she said, punched her fist into his belly, then lowered her head and kissed his belly where she’d struck him.
“You’d best think about this, Jessie.” He groaned. She whispered against his hard flesh, “Oh, I always know what I’m doing when I’m loving you, James.” Her hands were soft, her mouth warm.
“I’m not going to make it this time, Jessie.”
She made very certain that he didn’t.
There was no nightmare that night, to which James replied the following morning, “I just knew that if you actually saw that place with an adult’s eyes, then the terror would fade into nothing at all. And I was right.” He gave her a fatuous grin, kissed her nose, and left her, whistling one of the Duchess’s ditties.
“Well,” she said to the empty bedchamber, “he was right about that.”
33
He was a bold man that first eat any oyster.
—JONATHAN SWIFT
FROM THE LOOK on the Duchess’s face the next morning over breakfast, Jessie realized it had probably been an excellent night for the English Wyndhams as well.
By the end of the morning, however, everyone was in a profound depression. They’d read Samuel Teach’s two diaries yet again, thoroughly.
“Nothing,” Marcus said. “Damnation, nothing more, except that he bored me nearly to madness.”
“Curse him,” Jessie said. “He said nothing more about the treasure. Didn’t he even try to find it?”
“Evidently not,” the Duchess said, sighed, and patted Charles’s back. He obligingly burped, and she told him what a fine fellow he was.
“That leaves the castle, then,” James said. “More than a long shot. An impossibility, if the truth be told.”
Even Anthony was downcast.
“Let’s forget about all this for the moment. Let’s go to the ocean,” Badger said, and off they went.
It was a lovely day, a bit on the cool side, but it didn’t stop Anthony from running like a wild animal to the water’s edge, shrieking when a wave caught him, splashing up to his knees. The Duchess was sitting beneath a lone live oak that provided some shade from the radiant sun overhead. Badger had brought lemonade and some delicious seed cakes that no one knew how he’d prepared, given the fact that he’d had no time and surely he’d slept throughout the night, hadn’t he?
The men had rolled up their trouser legs and were playing just as freely as Anthony, enjoying themselves as they threw rocks to each other, running and leaping, sometimes falling.
“This isn’t fair,” Jessie said, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. “That’s just what I did when I was little. Now I’m afraid to even skip because I might hurt the babe.”
“Men,” Maggie said, “always remain little.”
“Yes, but they’re having fun, Maggie. Wouldn’t you like to be yelling and running around, chasing waves, finding crabs, pushing each other down in the sand, things like that?”
Maggie shuddered, not deigning to answer as she smoothed down a streamer that was flying around wildly with the stiff ocean breeze. The Duchess laughed. “It’s no use, Jessie,” she said. “I would like to perhaps walk along the water’s edge. It’s so incredibly lovely, so different from where we live in England.” She lifted baby Charles, who’d just yawned from his nap, and cooed up to him, telling him what a big boy he was, how his baby yawns were even clever. Then she put him on a blanket and watched him crawl off into the sand. “Oh dear,” she said, and scrambled after him. “I should have known the moment he woke up I would get all the exercise in the world.”
“My dear Sampson has an idea,” Maggie said suddenly, then tried to wave her words away with her hands.
“What’s the matter, Maggie?” Jessie asked. “What idea does Sampson have?”
“He told me not to say anything, that he wanted to think about it some more. But I think he’s terribly smart. He thinks the key to the treasure is somehow tied to the original Valentine’s diary, the one we haven’t even looked at yet.”
“But how could that be?” the Duchess said as she managed to retrieve Charles again from the sand. “The original Valentine was Blackbeard’s great-grandmother.”
“She could have given Blackbeard the idea of where to bury his plunder,” Maggie said simply. “That’s what Sampson thinks—not realizing, of course, that there would be a treasure sometime in the misty future, but naming an excellent place to dig a hole, if you know what I mean. You did say, didn’t you, Jessie, that the original Valentine was part of that Roanoke colony and that the colonists moved about with the local Indians? Maybe those Indians were here. Who knows?”
“Yes,” Jessie said slowly, staring at Charles, who’d managed to dig up a blue crab, which was scurrying wildly away. “And she could have been in this area. Yes, it’s very possible.” Jessie jumped to her feet. She stared down at Maggie and the Duchess, but she wasn’t really seeing them. “Yes, it’s more than possible.” She broke into a dead run down the beach to where the men were flinging clumps of sand at one another, laughing, and singing one of the Duchess’s ditties at the top of their lungs.
She yelled, “Sampson’s brilliant! Come along, all of you, we’ve work to do and treasure to find!”
Since it was Sampson’s idea, he was the one given the signal honor of deciphering the very faded and spidery sixteenth-century writing penned by the original Valentine. He read silently for a very long time before he looked up, smiled, and read aloud,
“‘We’ve been with the Croatoan Indians for nearly a month now. Without them, we would have not survived. There was no food and so many were ill. They helped us pack everything and brought us back to their village. They have tended our sick with local herbs and concoctions they have known for hundreds of years.
“‘ . . . Manatoa is my friend. Today he took me with him to fish in this small inlet that lies at the end of the chain of islands. After he caught nearly more fish than his small boat could hold, he rowed through this narrow channel that had thick poplars on both sides of it. There was also a high point of land that stuck up above the trees. Then the channel flowed into a much larger inlet. He said we were now looking toward the mainland, no longer the ocean. He said the narrow channel hadn’t been there twenty years ago. He said everything changed here all the time.’”
“Do you think that’s Teach’s Hole?” the Duchess asked as she pulled Charles’s fist out of his mouth.
“Very probably,” Jessie said. “I was told that it was very different a long time ago. Today there are very few poplars left there and that point is gone.”
“‘ . . . Manatoa told me that a sand dune could disappear overnight. He said storms could carve a channel through an entire island or silt up an already-open channel. He said whole stands of trees could be gone after a storm, their roots ripped up and the trees pulled out to sea. He said he never hid anything beneath the ground. It would never last. He told me not to forget that.
“‘ . . . Manatoa showed me one of the many marshes today and told me never to wade in it or stick my hand in the filthy water, even at high tide. He said there were snakes just below the surface and they would bite me and I would die. He told me about this one evil marsh. One day a villager came shouting into their midst that the marsh was empty. This had never happened before. All the other marshes would be empty or nearly so at low tide, but not this one. Everyone believed there was some sort of underground spring that fed it, but no one really knew. Manatoa told me that they went to marvel at it. There were snakes wriggling around in the black mud and crabs and slimy layers of sea growth that smelled awful. Everyone believed it either a miracle or a portent of doom. No one knew. One of
Manatoa’s friends waded into that black mud and discovered piles of huge rocks at the bottom sticking up through the mud. They were all round. He was terrified. I was the only one he told. He was afraid to tell any of the others. They might cast him out for being so foolish, for what if this had been an evil happening? He, by his action, could have cursed all of them. Manatoa told me those rocks were hard and big and wouldn’t move regardless of any storm. He said those rocks had been at the bottom of that marsh for a very long time. If they hadn’t disappeared by now then they probably never would. He said those rocks were the only things he would trust to survive on these islands.’”