He paused to glance out the stern window once again, remembering how the letter had arrived in the mail packet just delivered by the Rotterdam. It was dated two months past, and it had been deposited at Joan's tavern along with several others intended for seamen known to make port in Barbados.
Though I had these many long years thought you dead by the hands of the Spaniard, yet I prayed unceasing to God it should not be so. Now, upon hearing News of what you have become, I am constrained to question God's will. In that you have brought Ignominy to my name, and to the name of those other two sons of mine, both Dutiful, I can find no room for solace, nor can they.
He found his mind going back to memories of William and James, both older. He'd never cared much for either of them, and they'd returned his sentiment in full measure. William was the first—heavy set and slow of wit, with a noticeable weakness for sherry. Since the eldest son inherited everything, he had by now doubtless taken charge of the two thousand acres that was Winston Manor, becoming a country squire who lived off rents from his tenants. And what of James, that nervous image of Lord Harold Winston and no less ambitious and unyielding? Probably by now he was a rich barrister, the profession he’d announced for himself sometime about age ten. Or maybe he’d stood for Parliament, there to uphold the now-ended cause of King Charles.
That a son of mine should become celebrated in the Americas for his contempt of Law brings me distress beyond the telling of it. Though I reared you with utmost care and patience, I oft had cause to ponder if you should ever come to any good end, being always of dissolute and unruly inclination. Now I find your Profession has been to defraud the English crown, to which you should be on your knees in Reverence, and to injure the cause of honest Merchants, who are the lifeblood of this Christian nation. I am told your name has even reached the ears of His Majesty, causing him no small Dismay, and adding to his distresses at a time when the very throne of England is in peril from those who would, as you, set personal gain above loyalty and obedience. . . .
He stopped, not wanting to read more, and crumpled the letter.
That was the end of England. Why would he want to go back? Ever? If there’d once been a possibility, now it was gone. The time had come to plant roots in the New World. So what better place than Jamaica? And damned to England. He turned again to the stern windows, feeling the end of all the unease that had come and gone over the years. This was it.
But after Jamaica, what? He was all alone. A white cloud floated past the moon, with a shape like the beakhead of a ship. For a moment it was a gargoyle, and then it was the head of a white horse. . . .
He had turned back, still holding the paper, when he noticed the sound of distant pops, fragile explosions, from the direction of the Point. He walked, puzzling, back to the safe and was closing the door, the key already in the lock, when he suddenly stopped.
The Assembly Room was somewhere near Lookout Point, just across the bay. It was too much of a coincidence.
With a silent curse he reached in and felt until his hand closed around the leather packet of sight bills, the ones he would exchange for the indentures. Under them were the other papers he would need, and he took those too. Then he quickly locked the cabinet and rose to make his way out to the companionway. As he passed the table, he reached for his pistols, checking the prime and shoving them into his belt as he moved out into the evening air.