The Pirate and the Puritan by Cheryl Howe Page B

himself.
    The carriage slipped off into the
night and Drew said a silent farewell. He’d keep his vow to destroy El
Diablo , and he’d never see Ben or his daughter again.
    ***
     
    With great effort, Felicity
pretended she hadn’t overheard the whispered voices carried on the heated
breeze like the thick smell of tropical flowers. She studied the coach’s
fleurs-de-lis-embossed walls and red leather seats, only slightly curious how
her father had come by such a monstrosity. She was sure Drew arranged the
purchase—as he’d no doubt hired the musket-toting driver who’d worried her on
the ride to the Linleys’—but at the moment, her sole interest lay in her
father’s conversation with Drew.
    An oppressive silence settled
around her and her father, the only noise between them the carriage’s rattle
and the rhythm of the horses’ hooves. She drew a breath with the intention of
casually interrogating him, then swallowed her words. His usually plump cheeks
drooped with the weight that bent his shoulders.
    “Father, are you ill?” Her
concern momentarily replaced her excitement in discovering Drew planned to
leave Barbados.
    “It’s nothing, daughter. Talk of
the murders has upset me all over again.”
    Her father’s distress at the
brutal deaths was genuine, but she sensed his grieving went deeper. Drew’s
impending departure upset him. If she only had proof of the rogue’s misdeeds,
her father would be grateful instead of suffering unjustified sorrow.
    She patted his knee. “It was a
senseless act carried out by brutal men with no apparent conscience, so please
stop blaming yourself. It isn’t good for you.”
    “I am far more responsible than I
have the courage to admit.”
    Helpless to stop her father’s
self-imposed guilt, she settled against the padded seat in a squeak of rich
leather. He blamed himself when responsibility for the murders belonged to
Drew. In the snippets of conversation she’d overheard, Drew had admitted it. If
she had to guess, she’d say he had some unscrupulous dealings involving
pirates. After they’d been swindled, they probably wanted their due, and Marley
and his wife had paid with their lives.
    In a way, Drew had seduced her
father just as he had intended to seduce her. The realization conjured a surge
of anger for her own weakness as much as Drew’s actions. She couldn’t deny the
unwanted desires he had spawned any more than she could deny her relief that he
would soon be gone.
    With each plodding step of the
horses, their slick black carriage was carried farther from the docks. Her
opportunity to change her father’s mind about visiting the Hare and the Hound
and finding out more about El Diablo faded with the distant lights of
Bridgetown. Guilt at playing on her father’s remorse held her silent.
    Drew and his abrupt change of
plans were the principal culprits in her father’s dour mood. She stared at the
passing scenery. Murky green shadows tangled in a tunnel of foliage. The
contradictions in Drew’s behavior disturbed her. He was leaving Barbados, but
he had told her earlier that evening the seas were not safe for him. Had Drew
become strange after McCulla confirmed El Diablo’s responsibility for
the murders, or had he realized, during their conversation on the terrace, that
Felicity knew too much?
    She sat up abruptly. Perhaps his
departure would hurt her father in the end. One glance at his frowning features
and she knew his troubles with that aristocratic fraud were far from over. If
Drew fled to allow her father to take the blame for his misdeeds, his betrayal
would compound the man’s current misery. Felicity had personal experience with
abandonment. She’d not let her father be duped as she had been.
    On the long ride home, Felicity
furiously devised a plan. A plan that would be carried out tonight.

Chapter Four
     
     
    On the deck above, the pattering
of rain increased to a steady roar, dashing Drew Crawford’s hope that the storm
had passed. If