-I-

The bastard on the parapet above was very definitely aiming directly at him, and that, no matter his mixed feelings on why he was here in the first place, was the one thing Samuel Jones found bloody inexcusable. He ducked as the next round from the apparently very dedicated Spaniard blasted the trunk of the palm tree next to him, then fumbled another cartridge from his belt, tore the twist with his teeth, poured half the powder into the pan, and pulled his grimy ramrod to shove the ball, and the rest of the powder, down the barrel. Drew a bead on his target – the officers had about given up calling through the usual make ready, present, fire commands in the heavy bombardment, and every man was more or less shooting at will anyway – cocked it, closed one eye, sighted down the barrel, and pulled the trigger.

The gun kicked, boomed, and actually went off, which was always a happy surprise when it did. Peering through the smoke, Sam could see to his chagrin that he had not shot the Spaniard, though by the volume and quantity of what sounded like some very Catholic curses, he thought he had at least come close. He crouched back down to start the cumbersome reloading process yet again, thinking that when he had agreed to do this (well, insofar as he had had an actual choice), it had been, in his mind, far more glamorous. The order had gone out through the Province of Georgia for all able-bodied men of arms-bearing age, sixteen to sixty, to join Governor James Oglethorpe in his march to St. Augustine, the capital of Spanish La Florida, and (theoretically, at least) capture it for the English Crown. Such, therefore, was the idea.

Reality, naturally, was turning out to be far more complicated. To say the least, Sam's family had an extremely delicate history with the English Crown, and this war, which had broken out last year, 1739, on deliberate provocation by the British to improve their economic position in the New World and hang onto their slave-trading right with Spanish colonies, was about as dislikable as it was possible to get. England and Spain were always fighting each other anyway, and Sam's father and grandfather had both been strongly against his going (his mother as well, though for different reasons). Sam understood their philosophical objections, and to some degree shared them, but he himself had different concerns. His twentieth birthday was in September, and he absolutely did not intend to be the only young man of his age sitting around on his hands while the rest went off to war. The society and good opinion of a number of fetching young ladies was at stake. He was going to make the most of this.

It was possible, Sam reflected, as he squinted against the glare off the water, that there were easier ways to accomplish this objective. The siege of St. Augustine had been, thus far, a very nearly unmitigated disaster. While Oglethorpe had started out with some modest success, the Spanish had recaptured the satellite citadel of Fort Mose in a surprise attack, wiping out half the Highlander and Indian contingent that had held it, and the Royal Navy blockade in the harbor – which by the very word, blockade, was supposed to keep Spanish supply ships out – had failed at that one job, allowing them to slip through the siege lines and replenish St. Augustine's dwindling provisions. Sam's father, the former Royal Navy lieutenant who had fought in several battles of the last major Anglo-Spanish war (now about four wars ago) would have been absolutely aghast at this incompetence, and it had left the British army, on its heels, with no option but to try to bash their way into the city by brute force. Which, given current events, was shaping up exactly as well as might be expected.

Sam ducked again as a second blast from the Spanish artillery on the walls crumpled the much-abused tree next to him into matchwood. His ears were ringing, and sweat was pouring down his back from the bruising July heat. He was not wearing the ubiquitous red coat of a soldier, but the blue wool jacket of a Continental militiaman, and either way, he was bloody boiling. He shucked it off, tucked his linen blouson shirt back into his breeches, and threw a hopeful look at the sky, imploring it to help out with a breeze or a bit of rain. Though he was likely to regret that instantly if it actually did, as it would turn this entire low-lying salt plain into hellacious mud, and Commodore Pearce, the lion-hearted commander of the Navy fleet, already had his bloomers in a bunch about hurricane season. One drop, and he'd probably run screaming, wig flying.

Sam snorted to himself, reloaded his musket again (he wasn't as fast as the well-drilled Army lads who could get off four shots a minute, but he wasn't some bumbling backwater country boy either – not that you'd know, the looks he got) and fired. The Spaniard was engaged in preparing to visit some other malfeasance on him, and this momentarily interrupted said proceedings. Indeed, their eyes locked among the chaos, and Sam had the brief and unsettling impression that the man knew him from somewhere, or had otherwise some animus with him that went beyond the general conventions of two blokes on either side of a flag trying to blast each other's brains out. Then there was another explosion, the field gun next to Sam backfired and someone went down screaming, and he forgot about it.

A few more inconclusive salvos were exchanged for the next few hours, but it was clear that the resupplied city was well prepared to hold against a few piddling bombardments, and Sam heard the officers yelling to fall back. God, this was embarrassing. They outnumbered the Spanish almost three to one between Army, militia, and Indians, boasted five Navy frigates and three sloops, and yet they were the ones scuttling away with their tails between their legs. It was a slog of close to a mile back to the British camp, a small tent city pitched on marsh and cut by glades (which, camp rumor held, contained several man-eating crocodiles), and the soot-faced, sweaty men were trudging in hungry, tired, and massively dispirited. It was clear that unless something changed, and quickly, they had permanently lost the advantage in Florida, and sporadic pay had not improved their tempers. The regulars could be more or less assured of theirs, but the militiamen were already clothed and supplied at their own expense, and as the Crown tended to hold the position that they should feel grateful to serve their rightful sovereign from the goodness of their hearts, this was not a profitable occupation. Or –

"Jones. Hey. Jones!"

Sam looked up with a start at the shout, to see his friend Nathaniel Hunt, one of the other men who had come from Savannah, where the Swan-Jones family lived after moving from Boston fifteen years ago. Sam was madly in love with Nathaniel's sister Isabelle, who was chief among the young ladies whose good graces he hoped to obtain by this venture, and he turned to him, wiping his face with his arm. "Aye?"

"General Oglethorpe wants to see you." Hunt looked rather intimidated. "Personally."

"Oh?" Sam had to repress a brief swoop of unease. He had figured that he was mostly invisible among the ranks, and extra scrutiny was never terribly welcome for someone of his particular pedigree. To have the commander asking for you by name was. . . well, hopefully it was just to settle up about those back wages, but not terribly likely. "I'll be along in a moment, then."

As Hunt trotted off, presumably to relay this message, Sam untied his long dark hair from its thong, combed his fingers through it, and splashed a little water on his face, which had only a minimal effect on the accumulated dust. He scouted up a new jacket and retied his neckerchief, and when he looked more or less presentable for an audience with the general – who, apart from his military station, was also the governor of the Province of Georgia and someone with the power to make things difficult for Sam and his family – swallowed hard and set off across the camp. Twilight streaked crimson and orange and gold across the western sky, and supper fires were starting to be lit, small earthbound stars, as clouds of stinging insects buzzed up from the marshes. The soldiers slapped them, grumbled, cursed, passed around canteens and bowls of stew, sitting on half-rotted logs and leaning their muskets against knots of saltgrass. Sam suddenly desired their company more than he had a minute ago, if an unexpected visit had cropped up in the meantime. This was probably nothing. Routine procedure.

He reached the central tent after a few more minutes, gave his name to the redcoats on guard outside, and waited as they ducked in to inform Oglethorpe. Then they beckoned him through, and Sam advanced warily as the flaps fell shut behind him. He had a pistol in his belt, not that he thought he could shoot the bloody Governor if this went pear-shaped, and he clasped his hands behind him, feeling as if he was back at school with the particularly irascible Latin master. "Ah – Your Excellency? I'm Samuel Jones. You wanted to see me?"

"Yes." James Oglethorpe was a trim mid-forties aristocrat in a currently rather damp and flyaway wig, which he seemed to have made a losing effort to tame. He was sitting behind a camp desk heaped with piles of papers and parchments: requisition orders, army reports, maps of the region, dispatches from the scouts and spies, and doubtless a hundred and one bellyaching letters from Commodore Pearce about the needs of the fleet. A few candles were wedged precariously onto the edge, along with some fugitive inkwells and penknives and a half-finished plate of dinner and decanter of brandy. "At your ease, soldier."

The last thing Sam felt was at ease, but he snapped a salute, clicked his heels, then adopted a slightly more casual posture, taking the camp chair across from Oglethorpe when the governor nodded to it. He tried not to fiddle with the loose thread on his jacket cuff. "Sir?" he prompted, when Oglethorpe kept writing. Likely shouldn't, keep your mouth shut until the commanding officer spoke to you, so on and so forth, but holding his tongue (or his temper) had never been one of his particular virtues. "Did you – "

Oglethorpe gave him a dry look, as if to say that he would find out if he just shut up for a moment, and removed the gadroon from the candle, dropping melted wax onto the letter and sealing it with a stamp of his ring. Then he said, "You are Samuel Jones of Savannah, Georgia?"

"Yes, sir."

"Is your father Killian Jones, formerly first lieutenant of HMS Imperator in the Royal Navy?"

A slight chill went down Sam's back, as this was never a well-boding line of questioning. Still, he kept his expression neutral. "Yes, sir."

"And your mother, I believe – " Oglethorpe checked one of his papers. "Emma Jones, née Swan, who was at one point in operation of a vessel, the Blackbird, that – pursued business opportunities outside of the usual parameters of enterprise?"

"If you're asking if my mother was a pirate," Sam said bluntly, "I think you know the answer."

Both of Oglethorpe's eyebrows raised at that, but he forbore to rebuke this impertinency. He set aside his papers and regarded Sam levelly, fingers steepled. "Both your parents, weren't they? Your father's notorious alias was Hook, later in his career?"

Sam winced. So much for this being innocuous. "My parents have been upright citizens for almost three decades. And considering that Georgia was founded to provide a refuge for those who might have landed themselves on the wrong side of England's laws – you should recall, sir, as you did the founding – surely you can't be registering a moral objection now?"

"There is," Oglethorpe said, "rather some difference between the honest poor abused in workhouses, those escaping the unjust vicissitudes of religious oppression, and other such deserving refugees, than there are between notorious and unrepentant high seas pirates. On that note, I believe your grandfather was also a pirate? James McGraw, known as Captain Flint – reported dead some years ago, by hanging?"

Sam kept his face straight. The number of ersatz "Flints" captured by the authorities and inevitably executed had in fact become something of a running joke with his family – "hanged you again last week, Grandpa" – but this meant that Oglethorpe had been doing quite a bit of digging. Not merely to boast about it, either. "Aye," he said, since there wasn't much use in denying it outright. "But my grandfather is, as you say, dead."

"Mm. And you are most likely named for the late Captain Samuel Bellamy, a former close associate of your parents, and also a pirate?"

"Yes," Sam said resignedly, deciding not to mention that this man was additionally his godfather, as he had a feeling that would be making Oglethorpe's point for him. "Also a pirate."

"Mmmmm." Oglethorpe's nostrils pinched, but at least he was not shouting for the redcoats to rush in and string Sam up – yet – so there had to be some purpose to this interrogation. "Well, young Jones. You have a. . . colorful genealogy."

"Yes, sir." Sam was thirsty as buggeration, but he did not suppose that the governor was about to offer him a drink. "Anyone else to ask me about, sir?"

Oglethorpe gave him a cold fish-eye, seemed to consider it, and then sat back. "That will suffice for the moment. I suppose it's to your credit that you are forthcoming about it. Though, one would also reckon, quite dangerous."

"My parents never tried to hide who our family was, and used to be. Even as much as they've lived peacefully since they left that world behind." Sam's tone matched the governor's for levelness, but he was not about to sit here and listen to his kin be slandered to his face. "Is there a purpose to this? Sir?"

"So you are going to claim that, despite this, you are a loyal subject?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" Sam decided it was best to finesse this question. "Fighting for you? And from what I can tell, the whole thing has gone tits up without any help at all from me."

Oglethorpe looked pained.

"Er." Sam coughed. "Feet. Feet up."

"Well – despite your markedly uncouth matter of phrasing it, I cannot argue with your conclusions." Oglethorpe took the decanter and poured a bracing tot of brandy for himself. "The failure of the blockade was a serious blow, and by all indications, we will have to retreat. That damnable poltroon Pearce has also turned lily-livered about keeping the fleet out in hurricane season – though considering what happened twenty-five years ago, just down the coast, I suppose he has a point."

Sam concurred on this accord, as the legendary wreck of the 1715 Spanish treasure fleet was an event well known across the New World, and once more pertinent to his family history. He was, however, slightly wary as to why Oglethorpe had turned that quickly from interviewing him about said history to dropping bits of undeniably sensitive intelligence. His first instinct – that Oglethorpe wanted to blackmail him somehow – felt accurate, but it was more than that. Having made it clear what was at stake if Sam should refuse, viz. the potential continued peaceful existence of his entire family, the carrot must now follow the stick, and Sam didn't feel like waiting it out. "Well?" he said. "What do you want from me?"

Oglethorpe's eyebrows made a now fairly-accustomed pilgrimage toward his hairline. "Do you always speak so. . . openly to your superiors?"

"I'm not one for flimflam." Sam leaned back in his chair. "You do want something from me, don't you? That's what you're getting at. You've been elegantly insinuating how much you know about my family and how much trouble you could make if I don't cooperate. Let's assume for the moment that I'm cooperating. What is it?"

"Well." Feathers ruffled, Oglethorpe had to take a restorative gulp of brandy. "Among our other misfortunes, Governor Montiano has recently captured several of my clerks and aides-de-camp, men with detailed knowledge of our plans, capabilities, and the continuing broader operation of the war. We are preparing for a – well, never mind. Suffice it to say that the future strategy of the English Crown will be considerably jeopardized if Montiano succeeds in passing that intelligence to his overlords in Havana. In exchange for your agreement to work as my personal agent in this matter, tracking the Spaniard with the intelligence and taking whatever measures necessary to ensure that it is not received, I will. . . take your word for it that your family are productive and peaceable members of society. Is that clear enough for your tastes?"

Sam repressed a brief and unpleasant sensation that he knew exactly which Spaniard would be carrying the letter to Havana. "So you're what – asking me to put my inherited pirate skills to work in your interests? Shoot the messenger, as it were?"

"If that is what it takes, then it would, of course, be sanctioned by the state of war that exists between Great Britain and the Spanish empire. Not, of course, that I find the prospect tasteful. I am aware that murder remains a sin in the Anglican confession, and I would not ask you to commit it without due cause." Oglethorpe actually looked candidly at Sam for the first time in the conversation, which was nice enough of him that Sam decided against mentioning that his family wasn't much for church. "All I ask is that the letter with the intelligence does not reach Havana. And since you, as you note, have somewhat of a heritage with these acts, you can employ your own discretion as to what that involves."

"And I'm supposed to do this for free?"

"On the understanding that your family would be guaranteed their safety, yes."

Sam considered, tapping his fingers on his knee. He wanted to point out that guarantees of safety were not going to cover any bribes, fees of passage, food or lodging, or other expenses, and that the militiamen were, as noted, already several months in arrears of even their modest pay, which always seemed to be the first to go whenever the supply chain was in straits. Not too much in straits, though, given that Oglethorpe still had his brandy. Wouldn't want to deprive him of that, to be sure. "But you're still not expensing me for it?"

"I should not be surprised that the scion of pirates haggles like a fishwife." Oglethorpe pulled out another sheet of parchment, dipped his quill, signed it, and stamped it. "In that regard, well, this is for you. Letters of marque. It entitles you to take that which you require for your sustenance, under the auspices of your status as a servant to His Majesty, George II."

Sam grimaced. "You're making me a privateer, you mean."

"I am hiring a pirate," Oglethorpe pointed out, with some asperity. "Not a priest."

This was, Sam supposed, rather flattering in its way, so that he wondered if he wanted to correct Oglethorpe's amusing but mistaken impression that he had been raised as a miniature buccaneer from the cradle, wrapped in the skull and crossbones as a baby blanket and taught his letters by chalking DEATH TO ENGLISH TYRANNY over and over on the slate. He in fact had no more real knowledge of the pirate life than any other nineteen-year-old lad with an overactive imagination, because his parents had always ensured that he never had to live that way. But he could not deny that he was curious. They had all experienced it, they had known it, they had bled and breathed it, and grateful as he was for his comfortable and prosperous childhood, he felt that he had rather missed the boat, in more ways than one. He was proud of what his family had been, even as he knew there was no place for them in this ever more modern world. And yet, he could not help but want his own taste. Just a little. Just that same breath of adventure, of freedom.

He hesitated, then took the letter. Not that he knew entirely what to do with it, but it couldn't hurt to keep it for now. "Am I going by myself?"

"An army company would attract attention, and I won't be able to spare men from our rearguard, given that Montiano and his negroes are likely to be breathing up it." Oglethorpe sighed. He himself was a fairly progressive man as such things went; it was on his express instigation that slavery had been banned in the new colony of Georgia, and he had cultivated genuinely good relationships with the local Indians, several of whom were here fighting for him. That did not mean, however, that he was inclined to view a hostile alliance of Spaniards and black men favorably. Slavery had been outlawed in Spanish Florida since 1728, granted in gratitude for them rising up to defeat an attempted British invasion, and since the issue of its continued trade lay at the heart of this war, Sam rather thought that despite any personal convictions as to its moral wrongness, Oglethorpe was still supporting it by fighting for the system that sustained it. "You may, however," the governor went on, "choose a traveling companion. Your mission will be dangerous, and it is best not to go entirely alone."

"Hunt," Sam said at once. Whatever was going to happen, he'd feel far safer with a friend from home at his back. "Nathaniel Hunt."

"Very well. If you think you can trust him, you'd best be on your way." Oglethorpe looked as if he knew that he was depriving Sam of a hearty meal and a good night's sleep, but time was of the essence. The Spanish agent might already have a head start. "Good luck, Mr. Jones."

"Please," Nathaniel said as they trudged through the thigh-high salt grass, "tell me that you're not doing this to impress my sister."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Sam prodded gingerly ahead of him with his musket. There were all kinds of poisonous vipers around here – moccasins, copperheads, cottonmouths – and he'd seen a man bitten, have his leg swell up blue and bloated, then die in agony hours later. The sound of the camp had almost, but not quite, faded behind them, and as they had to get back to St. Augustine, determine if the courier had left yet, and avoid being killed all before sunrise, Sam was setting a brisk pace. "Besides, even if I was, fair's fair, isn't it? You're not going to tell me you don't have eyes for Geneva?"

Nathaniel was a tall, lanky redhead, which meant that when he blushed, it looked as if his entire head was afire. The fact that said blush was visible even by moonlight was testament to its ferocity. "Shut up."

"Aha." At least, Sam thought, Nathaniel could take comfort in the fact that he was far from alone in this affliction. Geneva Jones was twenty-four, a striking beauty (not that Sam himself was vested in this, as she was his older sister, that would just be bloody weird) and the present captain of the family ship, the Rose, which had been a Navy sixth-rater in its former life before their mother commandeered it. Geneva had always demonstrated more of an aptitude and aspiration for sailing than Sam, who preferred to conduct his misadventures on land (the one trait in which he sensed that he might have disappointed his seafaring relations) and as such, had been the one prepared to inherit said vessel. Come to think of it, this mission also couldn't hurt as a chance to polish Sam's credentials as an old salt, or however that worked. "You do."

"I said, shut up." Nathaniel kept walking determinedly. "Besides, someone has to come along to be sure you don't break your fool neck."

"It'll be a good story," Sam said. "Have your uncle print it up in his paper. Or he can put it in the other one, Poor Richard's Almanack. I'm sure it would be very popular."

Nathaniel looked mildly horrified at this suggestion, as if his uncle Benjamin found out, it would assuredly mean that his mother, one of the other sixteen children of Josiah Franklin and his two wives, would find out as well. "I think I'd rather face the Spaniards."

"There, see, you've that going for you already." Sam stole another wary look from side to side, checked the grass once more for poisonous beasts (of whatever variety) and jumped the creek, before gesturing to Nathaniel to halt. "This shouldn't take long. Keep watch."

Nathaniel blinked, utterly baffled. "Keep watch? For what? We're not even out of the camp yet. Hate to break it to you, Jones, but that's one of our supply wagons just there, not a Spanish artillery position."

"I know it's a supply wagon, you dolt." Sam cracked his knuckles. "I said, keep watch."

Bafflement remained the chief emotion on his friend's freckled countenance a moment longer, until it was replaced by horror. "Oh no. Oh, no. Sam, don't you – "

"I have a letter of marque, remember? And this is the hell of a lot easier to start with than some Spanish fortress or man-o-war bristling with guns. Besides, they haven't paid us anyway. Do you want your share or not?"

"Oh my god," Nathaniel said. "You are going to get us killed."

"Just keep quiet and let out a good yell if anyone comes this way." Sam checked that the sentries had passed, then limbered up the side of the wagon, untying the lashings and burrowing beneath the canvas like a determined weasel. He could still hear Nathaniel muttering imprecations to himself under his breath, clearly vastly regretting this decision not an hour into it, but, well, that was his misfortune. Sam rummaged around in the dimness, saw beady eyes and batted away the foot-long rat that was gnawing on the grain sack, and finally happened on one of the petty cash chests. The main strongboxes were kept in the governor's pavilion with the guards, but the supply wagons needed to have their own capital on hand to barter or purchase provisions for the army, and the drivers were not always terribly conscientious about taking it out every night – who would bother to steal it, in the middle of camp, when being caught would either get them short a hand or a noose around the neck? Aye. Rhetorical question, Jones. The answer being you.

Sam took the ramrod from his musket, which he had brought into the wagon with him for this express purpose, and worked at the lock – not terribly complicated – until it gave way. He might not be a full-blown pirate, no, but growing up with them had given him a black-market skill or two, and he opened the chest, grabbed one of the money sacks inside, gave it a good jingle to test that it was full, and then stuffed it into his jacket and bailed out of the wagon to the extremely judgmental stare of Nathaniel Obadiah Hunt. At least it was his, and not anyone else's, and Sam scrambled to his feet, brushing grass off his breeches. "Let's go."

Still shaking his head, Nathaniel shouldered his own musket and their rucksack of provisions, and they trotted at a healthy pace until the British camp had mostly disappeared behind them. St. Augustine lay dark on the horizon, the Castillo de San Marcos bristling with fortified positions and torches burning along the walls. The Spanish were no doubt extremely vigilant as the possibility of a second English sneak attack during the night, and Sam and Nathaniel had to be very, very careful picking their way across the outlying island. It was still strewn with the remains of the bombardment earlier, broken trees and heaps of stones and here and there, unpleasantly, a staring corpse already starting to smell ripe from the heat. Some of them had supplies still with them, and might have had coin, but Sam already had what he needed, and he was no grave-robber. Leave that to the scavengers.

At last, they reached the bay, slipped through the mud flats left by the outgoing tide, and cautiously eyed up the ships in the harbor. All they really had to go on was that Governor Montiano would be sending his intelligence to Havana, so they could hitch a ride aboard one of the sloops – it shouldn't be too difficult, if Sam presented his commission from Oglethorpe. He thought vaguely of the fact that his family might wonder what had happened to him, if he did not return home with the rest of the retreating army. When tasked with a vital secret mission, you did not get a chance to ask if you could write to your mother first, but Sam hoped they wouldn't worry. Besides, any letter he gave to one of Oglethorpe's minions would provide them with an excellent chance to find out exactly where his family lived, the fact that his grandfather was not dead, and other such sensitive details. Finish this, and they'd be. . . well, Sam was not so naïve as to think that this would shield them from scrutiny forever. But still. This could matter.

He took a deep breath, hitched his pack up, and started to walk.

It was the dream that woke Emma, though once she opened her eyes and felt herself return to reality with a small gasp, she was not quite sure what it had been. It slipped quietly away on the tides of sleep and the stillness before sunrise, and she blinked hard, left with only a vague sense of unsettlement and unease. It faded, though, and she let herself sink back into the pillows, Killian's arm settled around her waist where he had draped it before they had fallen asleep. In the deep heat of a southern summer, neither of them saw much call to wear anything to bed, and much as Emma enjoyed being cocooned in amorous embrace with her dearest spouse, she was also rather too warm, and she lightly disentangled herself, settling his arm on the mattress and admiring the dark sweep of lashes on his cheek. He looked young in his sleep, he always had, despite the advancing streaks of silver that frosted his hair, the well-weathered lines that framed his eyes. At almost fifty-three – his birthday was in a few more weeks, on Saint Bartholomew's day at the end of August – he would have fallen under the militia conscription order as well, as men were not exempt from service until the age of sixty, but a one-handed man did not qualify as able-bodied, could not fire a musket or otherwise fight, and besides, it was possible that the Colony of Georgia did not want to clutch Captain Hook too closely to its bosom anyway. That past was kept quiet and private these days, and Emma did not think that the authorities were fully aware, but no sense in tempting fate. Besides. She was just as glad to keep him home.

That made her think yet again about Sam, whom she had not stopped worrying about since he had marched off with the rest of the men in January. At going on six months, this was the longest he had yet been away from home, and with the slow and piecemeal movement of news through a war zone, there was not necessarily any way to know that they would have been informed by now if he had died. The founding of Georgia as an organized colony, when previously it had been the vital buffer zone between the British Carolinas and Spanish Florida, was always destined to be a point of serious contention, and Emma could not help but resent that her family had once more been caught up in one of England's pointless, damaging, draining wars. Still. At least the rest of them were here, together. At least she had this.

She paused, looking down at Killian, then settled closer alongside him, deciding that the heat, given that the sun was not quite up, was not too onerous after all. She traced a finger down his chest (his magnificent fur was also rather silver in places) and then lower, opening her palm, as he made a deep, rumbling sound in his sleep, stirred, and she saw a crack of blue beneath those lashes, grinning at her. He arched his back, pressing himself into her hand. "Well, love. That's one way to wake up."

"Good morning." Emma leaned down to kiss the corner of his mouth, wanting him, his weight and warmth and presence, to chase away whatever demons were lingering from the darkness. Her hair fell loose, the blonde gone white in a few sizeable places as well, as he reached up with his good hand to play with it, tucking it behind her ear. "Did I interrupt a good. . . dream?"

"Nothing comparable to the real thing." Killian shifted as she rolled on top of him, uttering another satisfied-sounding rumble as she palmed him. He wrapped his shortened arm around her waist, settling her into the grooves and lines and hollows of his body where she had learned to fit so well, and they passed an extremely pleasurable interlude with the minimum of talking. Then, when she had rolled off again, both of them enjoying the deep flush of climax spreading through them with the same steady glow of the rising sun, he said, "What is it, love?"

Emma supposed she shouldn't be surprised that he could, as ever, sense even the faintest tremors of disquiet in her soul. "Nothing." She circled his nipple with her finger. "I'm all right now."

Killian gave her one of his Really, Swan? looks.

"Really." Emma had to laugh. "Just worrying about Sam again, that's all. I had a dream – I don't even remember if it was about him – but it felt like one of those. . . those motherly things. It's been hard on me, the not knowing. I'm ready for him to come home."

"You can't keep the lad close by forever," Killian said gently. "When I was nineteen – well, I'd just joined the Navy, so everything seemed possible to me. You're not the smartest of creatures when you're a boy of that age, so – whatever Sam's been doing, whatever he's gotten himself into, it's likely best we don't know, eh? Be far too stressful otherwise."

Emma buzzed a reluctant laugh, even as she couldn't rid herself of the faint, lingering thorn in her heart. Still, however, there were happier preoccupations on this front. "I don't suppose Geneva will be awake just yet. She was rather late arriving last night."

"Aye," Killian agreed, with the same doting look he had always worn when discussing the subject of his daughter, for all the twenty-four years of her life to date. Geneva had just returned from her trip to Boston, where Henry had remained with his wife Violet and their two children, Richard and Lucy. Henry had a respectable position as a reader of law and history at Harvard College, though he had been making noises about moving the family to Philadelphia and taking up with Nathaniel and Isabelle Hunt's uncle Benjamin and the newspapers, pamphlets, and publishing business he was profitably running there. The Hunts were longtime friends of the Swan-Jones family, also with their roots in Boston, and Emma hoped that Nathaniel, who had likewise gone to war, was at least trying to keep her son out of trouble. He seemed to have a far better grasp on what that actually entailed than Sam did. He's too much like the rest of us.

At any rate, Geneva sailed fairly frequently between Boston and Savannah, keeping up the family tradition of female captains in her mother's stead, and she might have picked up something about the progress of the war on her peregrinations. Emma sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and went to pull on her shift and drawers, then her stays. "Give me a hand?"

"Very funny, Swan." Killian rolled his eyes tolerantly, though he had in fact become quite good at doing up his wife's corset with one hand; he did not always bother to put on the complicated brace for the hook if they were merely lounging around at home, and he tended to wear his false hand when they were going out. Savannah might be an opportune place for ex-pirates to settle, given the philanthropic considerations that had attended the colony's founding, but that did not equate to openly displaying it before everyone's faces.

Once Killian had laced the stays, not too tightly, Emma shrugged on a light lawn dress, and Killian himself pulled on a loose shirt and buttoned breeches, both of them leaving their feet bare as they padded downstairs and into the airy solarium that adjoined the house's kitchen. They did not keep servants, though they could certainly afford to do so; that would just have to go into the ledger as another item with which to shock the neighbors. Killian sat at the table as Emma filled the kettle and set it on for coffee, to which all the Colonies had become ragingly addicted, and set on a pot of porridge to warm. When it was burbling appealingly, she took it off, spooned it into two bowls, and took the honey pot as Killian passed it with a slightly pained look on his face. This was her taste in breakfast more than his, as Killian tended to insist on boiled mackerel, grapefruit, and other severe and bracing choices of morning meal. You could, and might have long since, taken the sailor out of the Navy, but etc etc.

They had eaten for a few minutes in amiable silence when the stairs creaked, and – clearly drawn by the scent of food – Geneva came shuffling in in her dressing gown, yawning and groggy. Nonetheless, both Killian and Emma quickly got to their feet to greet their daughter with a kiss, and Emma ladled out a third bowl of porridge, pouring coffee into an earthenware mug (she and Geneva liked it with a bit of cream and sugar, Killian insisted on quaffing it black as tar). "How was the voyage, sweetheart?"

"It was a bit of a bloody hassle, actually." Geneva shook her tousled black locks out of her face, sat down with her breakfast next to her father, and began to voraciously devour it. "The Spanish are crawling straight up the arse of any ship that seems remotely English, and I must have had to declare my goods ten times. Not to mention the looks those bastards give me, whenever I say that I'm the captain. I spent five hours arguing with the guardas costas off Cape Hatteras."

Killian and Emma exchanged a look, as they themselves were too familiar with the guardas costas, the Spanish patrol ships that had made pirate lives so unpleasant back in the day. This war, moreover, had ostensibly been started by one – when the master of the guardas ship La Isabela had seized and boarded a British brig, the Rebecca, and cut off the ear of its captain, one Robert Jenkins. The incident had remained a source of insult, but only that, until the British government, looking for an excuse to declare war on Spain, had fanned it into evidently the most major outrage the country had ever suffered, anywhere. (Colorful legends that the severed appendage had been displayed before Parliament remained unverified.) "Off Cape Hatteras?" Emma repeated. "They're not supposed to be so far in English territory."

"Must have been my lucky day, then." Geneva gulped down another spoonful of porridge. "We all know that the real profit from the annual ship comes from all the contraband aboard it, so I suppose they were determined to ensure it wasn't me. I finally sent him packing, though."

"Aye, that's my lass." Killian looked enormously proud. The "annual ship" meant the one ship of trade goods a year that Britain was allowed to send to the Spanish colonies in the West Indies, as they were otherwise a closed market that only Spain was allowed to trade with. The Spanish colonists, however, were as eager for English luxury goods as their government was for them not to have them, and were willing to pay exorbitant prices for their acquisition. Hence, whichever captain was chosen for the annual ship must be barely able to hold the wheel, as his palms had been so well greased. Half of the smuggling in the Caribbean for the entire year must go through that ship, and was fenced profitably at its port of destination, so the guardas costas must be even more overzealous in trying to catch it and prove a major success to Madrid. "While you were out, did you. . . hear anything of how things are going, in Florida?"

A slight shadow passed over Geneva's face, as she clearly knew they were asking for news of her brother. "Only rumors, but it didn't sound promising. Oglethorpe is besieging St. Augustine, has been since June, but whichever nobhead they have in command of the Navy fleet seems to be sleeping on the job. The sea blockade hasn't been effective. They might have to fall back."

Killian snorted, as even his long departure from the Navy would certainly not prevent him from judging it harshly on its failures. "Typical."

"Aye." Geneva scraped the bottom of her bowl and looked hopefully for a second serving, which Emma took it to provide. "Then again, what would you expect? I doubt the South Sea Company is actually giving them any money either."

"No," Killian said scathingly. "Seeing as that would detract from losing it in illicit insider trading and gaming the stock market. Likewise typical that twenty years after they crashed the economy the first time, they're given a kiss on the arse by Westminster and their very own war, isn't it?"

Geneva, who had been only four when the "South Sea Bubble" burst for the first time, ruining a number of common creditors who had been persuaded to invest at artificially skyrocketing stock prices in the promised opening of trade with the Spanish Indies (but not, of course, the wealthy shareholders who had conned them into it) raised an eyebrow. "You know you sound like a grumpy old man, Daddy, don't you?"

"I'm justified, lass," Killian said, with great dignity. "Well, if Oglethorpe is retreating from Florida, that might mean your brother's coming home, but it's not necessarily good news for the rest of us. That means the Spaniards might be on the march, and if they make it to Savannah – "

The Swan-Joneses exchanged a look, as they all knew that what befell captured cities in wartime was rarely pleasant. Finally Geneva said, "We'll leave on the Rose, we'll take Granny, Grandpa, and Great-Uncle Thomas with us. Go back to Boston, if we have to."

"Ah," Killian murmured. "So England can take another home from us."

There was a brief and unhappy silence, as nobody was eager to uproot from Savannah, where they had lived for fifteen years, and surely Miranda, James, and Thomas must be even less so. Still, that remained as yet a theoretical difficulty, happily, and Geneva drank the last of her coffee, then set the cup down. "On that note, I was actually planning to visit them today. I brought back some books for them. Did you want to come?"

"That sounds lovely." Emma started to rise to her feet. "I'll get the horses hitched up."

"No, Mother, I'll do it. Soon as I get dressed." Geneva pushed her back down. "Stay."

Raising an eyebrow, Emma did as instructed, as she had to consider that perhaps it would not be the worst thing in the world to consider hiring help. When Sam was home, he was saddled with all the chores that it was useful to have a teenage son on hand to accomplish, but with his extended absence, and the fact of Killian's limitations, that meant that most of the housework and general mucking about fell to Emma. Neither of them were getting any younger, and there were certainly any number of interested applicants. At least a maidservant and a footman, as they could likely get by with that, and she reminded herself that she would certainly treat them better than Leopold White had ultimately treated her. She would have to place an advertisement in the Virginia Gazette, published in Williamsburg, as that was the chief newspaper serving the southern colonies. Gone were the days when all the Americas had only had the Boston News-Letter, printed once weekly, to rely upon, as the trade was steadily growing – thanks in no small part to Ben Franklin, in fact. She'd look into it.

Geneva returned in fifteen minutes or so, washed and brushed, and went to hitch up their two horses to the buggy, which she enjoyed driving through Savannah's cobbled streets at decidedly unladylike speeds. Various outraged guardians of public virtue had registered their objections to Killian, which were promptly and thoroughly ignored, and several local ministers were more than slightly convinced of Geneva's status as a Cautionary Tale to all the impressionable young women in their parishes. Emma bit a grin as her daughter helped them up onto the running board, adjusted her hat to a fashionable angle, gathered the reins in gloved hands, and snapped them lightly over the horses' backs. They rolled out of the carriage house, and down the road.

It was a hot and clear late-summer morning in Savannah, the air already thick as soup, and the merchants were at least as interested in reclining in the shade as they were in hawking their wares. Geneva only attracted a few stares, as most of the locals were resignedly used to her by now, and they sped up once they had crossed town, taking the road (well, wandering country lane) that led out to the small house, built under huge old oaks, where Miranda Hamilton McGraw lived with her husbands, who were at least as married to each other as they were to her. Hearing the buggy's wheels crunching up, she opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, and Geneva waved to her. "Stay there, Granny," she called. "We'll come over."

Miranda did as instructed, though her face had lit up with joy to see her granddaughter, as the two of them were very close. She was not much for traveling these days, as she had never entirely recovered from her ordeal in Charlestown and the lasting damage it had left in her, and at the age of sixty-five, she was more than justified in a quiet retirement. When Geneva had unbuckled the harnesses and led the horses to the trough, she hurried up the garden walk to hug her grandmother (gently) and kiss her on the cheek. "I have a surprise for you."

"More than just this unexpected visit?" Miranda raised an eyebrow, turning so Emma could kiss her as well, and Killian nodded affectionately. "I didn't think you'd be back from Boston for another week at the least."

"Wind was good," Geneva said, with the casual competence of the experienced sailor. "Though the delays with the guardas nearly wiped that out."

Miranda's brow furrowed. "They've gotten quite bold again, haven't they?"

"Don't worry, Granny, I still have both my ears," Geneva assured her, linking her arm through Miranda's, as Miranda took a better grip on her cane with the other hand, to escort her inside. With Killian and Emma following, they went through to the small kitchen at the back of the house, where James McGraw and Thomas Hamilton were reading the paper in their shirtsleeves. Flint was likewise in his late sixties, but tough and strong and weathered as a stump of ironwood, his hair gone mostly the rich, mellow white of redheads, though there were ginger streaks left here and there and in his beard. Strictly speaking, he hadn't been "Flint" for many years now, and while everyone was grateful for it, it still tended to be how Emma thought of him. Fonder, rather than the previous wariness and careful, always-contested alliance, but an older lion was still a dangerous one, and he more than certainly still had his claws. Even his life here in peaceful obscurity with Miranda and Thomas had not softened those edges entirely.

And yet, Flint was smiling as he stood up. "Well," he said, crossing the floor to clap Killian on the shoulder, let Emma kiss his scruffy cheek, and hug Geneva with one arm. "Thought I smelled trouble. Those bastards let you back into port then, Jenny?"

"Only with minimal bribery, aye," Geneva said dryly. She stepped past him to hug Thomas, who – although she and Sam would have happily called him grandpa as well – insisted that he did not want to take away from the family that James and Miranda had built in the years without him, and was content to be known as great-uncle. "I've a surprise for you."

With that, she took out a large parcel wrapped in brown paper, handed it over, and watched with barely concealed delight as her grandparents opened it. There was a leather-bound edition of the poems of Catullus, the same of the histories of Tacitus, a copy of Gulliver's Travels by the novelist Swift, the newest Poor Richard's Almanack, some tracts by the philosopher Locke, and several French books with risqué woodcuts. "This must have cost you a fortune," Miranda said, finally looking up from lovingly paging through each. "Are you sure you don't want us to – ?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Granny. It's a gift." Geneva shook her head firmly. "You know Henry's at Harvard, and he's thinking about moving to Philadelphia and taking up with Mr. Franklin. You'll have more books than you know what to do with."

"Gracious, you'll spoil us." Miranda's eyes shone, belying her protestations, as she squeezed Geneva's hand. "Well, what next for you, after all this industry? Surely a young lady as busy as you won't be sitting at home for long, much as we might enjoy your company while you are."

"Actually." Geneva's voice was the sort of carefully offhand tone that was used to impart potentially uncomfortable information, while trying to make it sound as ordinary as possible. "I was thinking about going to Nassau."

That caused everyone in the kitchen to sit up sharply and pay attention. Killian and Emma glanced at each other, as James, Thomas, and Miranda did likewise, a current running among all five of the adults. Thomas had never been there, and the other four had not been back since they had left. It was a bustling center of (mostly) lawful commerce these days, rather than a notorious outlaw haven, and they obviously could not stop Geneva going if she wanted to, but that would certainly take a few tries to swallow. "Nassau?" Emma said at last. "Why?"

"Uncle Charlie's there," Geneva pointed out, which was true. Emma's brother, Charles Swan, had stayed on New Providence Island and risen to a position of some significance in its politics. The pirates' old and sworn enemy, Woodes Rogers, had actually been reinstated to the office of governor after he was released from debtors' prison, though his second tenure was quite a bit less successful than the first, and he had died there in 1732. Upon the occasion of his decidedly unlamented demise, Charles had taken over as the acting governor of the island, holding the office for a few months, before he formed the strong opinion that such a career was not at all for him. He returned to his work with Max, the de facto mistress of the island anyway, to manage David and Mary Margaret Nolan's shipping and merchant concerns in the Bahamas, of which a portion of the considerable profits had been sent to Killian and Emma for years. And yet, none of them had ever quite felt up to returning. It felt like tempting fate, given everything that had happened to them there. Charlie had visited them in Boston and Savannah alike, but they had never returned the favor with Nassau. It remained too delicate.

"Aye," Emma said at last, slowly, seeing that her daughter was waiting for her to answer. "I can understand you might want to visit, and aye, Charlie would be happy to introduce you to the merchant guilds there. But it's. . . it's surely not where you mean to make a career?"

"One of you should be a pirate," Flint suggested. "Seeing as Samuel can't sail to save his life."

Miranda gave her second husband a deeply reproving look. "James."

"No, Grandpa, I don't mean to be a pirate." Nonetheless, Geneva had to bite her lip on a smile. "But I – I've wanted to go there for a while. I feel as if I should at least see the place."

"By yourself?" Thomas raised a grey-blonde eyebrow. "From what James and Miranda have told me, it's not the sort of place I'd think a young lady would feel comfortable venturing alone – it might be slightly more respectable these days, but a fresh coat of paint is scarcely about to fix all the holes in the walls, only hide them. Nobody would know me, and therefore I doubt I'd attract any singular attention as your chaperon. Permit me to come along."

Flint and Miranda both started to say something at this, then stopped. Surely Thomas must be just as curious about the life they had shared there for a decade without him, and with his long years of work on the plantation where he had been sent by his father, thus to expunge the scandal from the Hamilton family name without actually killing him, he was still reasonably spry and active. As he pointed out, it would attract no attention for an older gentleman to be traveling with his great-niece, and no matter if it had been a quarter century or not, there was no way Captain Flint could set foot on Nassau again without lighting the entire Caribbean afire with the news. The world presumed him dead several times over, which was not entirely inaccurate insofar as Captain Flint had long returned to the sea and only James McGraw remained, and it was that anonymity which was keeping him, his wife and husband, and the rest of their family safe. Nobody needed to look for a dead man, or think to try him for his crimes. Bringing him back to life might be more trouble than it was worth.

"Thomas," Miranda began at last. "Are you sure? Do you want to – I could go with both of you, if you thought that would – "

"You can't travel well," Thomas reminded her. "And I know you and James have not spent a single night apart since you found each other again. Stay here and look after each other as you did for so long, my dear ones. It's my pilgrimage to make, now. Assuming, of course, that Geneva would be willing to bring an old man along."

"Of course, Great-Uncle Thomas." Geneva seemed surprised that he would have to ask. "I'm not planning to be there long, just a fortnight or so. If you wanted more time – "

"No, no. A fortnight should be fine." Thomas smiled at her. "Likewise, I thought it was time that I visited. So then. That's settled?"

Flint and Miranda glanced at each other, their hands linking under the table, then nodded. Just as well, Emma knew that she and Killian could not prevent their daughter, a grown woman and captain of her own ship, from returning to the place where this had all begun, their home and their fortress and their battleground for many years. Still, Emma hoped it would go quickly, and that Charlie was correct when he insisted it was no different from any other bustling port city in the New World. She had carried a certain image of Nassau in her head for so long that it was a shock to think of her daughter going there, bringing the two worlds together again after their years of separation, until sometimes it seemed to have dwindled almost into a dream lost on waking. Like the one this morning, like that faint whisper of unease but nothing discernible or solid. Only shifting shadows, and countless ghosts.

"Very well, then," she said at last. "But please do be careful."

Geneva and Thomas left three mornings hence, once Geneva had had a chance to resupply the Rose, be sure that her crew had been paid (they were too used to her schedule to complain that she was dragging them out of home and hearth and their wives or mistresses' beds after not even a week ashore, and she made sure the money was good enough that they didn't) and made at least reasonably certain that there was not a hurricane brewing up further out to sea. It wasn't a terribly long journey from Savannah to Nassau, and she had sailed to the Caribbean before, but it was still not one she cared to risk if the weather was going to be a pain in the hindquarters. Especially given how anxious her parents and grandparents already were about the enterprise, no matter how hard they tried to disguise it. She didn't mean to worry them, but she was also fully confident in her ability to handle herself, and her great-uncle Thomas, while he might not be one of the several pirate captains in the family, had learned from necessity how to defend himself. They would be fine. Her uncle Charlie would be there too. No worries at all.

Geneva was also aware that her family was especially sensitive about the prospect of storms, given how her godfather, her brother's namesake, had died. She had only met Sam Bellamy once, when she was far too young to remember, only hours after her birth on a remote strip of Caribbean sandbar, which was also where her grandparents had been married and made the fateful decision to sail for Charlestown and avenge the betrayal of their old friend, Peter Ashe. She had been taken away with Henry by their uncle Liam and aunt Regina, who lived in Paris these days, and who Geneva also did not remember, given that they had left France and returned to the Colonies when she was still less than a year old. She knew her father missed his older brother, as the Jones boys had never been separated in their lives until Killian's disgrace and downfall, his transformation into Hook, but Liam was likewise not much for traveling any more, wanted his sailing days to be behind him, and was haunted by the events of Charlestown in a different way. He had had to kill the bloodily infamous privateer and terrifying mercenary captain, Henry Jennings – also to protect Geneva and Henry, and which Henry remembered but would not talk about – and that memory, the cost of what it had taken to bring down the monster who had wreaked so much pain and havoc on their family, had left him never the same again.

Geneva had begun to mull the idea of suggesting to her parents that she take them to Paris, though it would certainly be the longest voyage she had ever attempted; she had sailed plenty in the Colonies and the Caribbean, but the Atlantic was a different proposition. Not that she thought she wasn't capable, and if worse came to worse, she would have both her father and mother, experienced captains in their own right, to help. But if she wanted to go to Nassau, she also wanted to go to France. Could not help but think of that Scottish folk ballad, and how oddly, poignantly appropriate it was for their scattered family. The water is wide, I cannot get o'er. Neither have I the wings to fly. Give me a boat that can carry two, and both shall row, my love and I. She wanted her father to see her uncle again, wanted to mend what still seemed so deep and raw and broken. A ship there is and she sails the sea, she's loaded deep as deep can be. But not so deep as the love I'm in, I know not if I sink or swim.

Nonetheless, Geneva did her best to banish such melancholy preoccupations for their departure. Grandpa, Granny, Mother, and Daddy had all come to see them off, all with a flood of last-minute advice about Nassau. Despite their misgivings, she couldn't help but think that they all missed it, at least a little, though some of their suggestions were wiser than others. "Get into at least one fight," her grandfather said, sotto voce, as he hugged her on the quay. "Don't tell your parents."

"Grandpa." Geneva raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm not going to start a second war, you know."

"Pity. I think England deserves all the wars it can get." James McGraw smiled, not entirely reassuringly. "Jenny, you and Thomas look after each other. That place is not just a bit of quaint family history, you know. What Nassau did to me, to all of us. . . it can catch you off guard, if you're not prepared for it, and it can change you. You're smart, and you're strong, and you're hopefully more bloody sensible than we were, but still. Pay attention. Both of you."

"I will," Geneva promised, turning to kiss her grandmother and then hug both of her parents. They were putting a brave face on it, but they were still clearly struggling with letting her go again, when the questions of her brother's whereabouts remained outstanding, and she hoped she ran across the little twerp on the way, give him a good shake for making them worry. Sam Jones had a very high sense of adventure and a very low sense of self-preservation, which could make for a combustible combination.

Farewells completed, as Thomas kissed Miranda, hugged James, and promised Killian and Emma that he would likewise look after their daughter, the travelers went aboard the Rose, and Geneva gave orders for them to make ready to depart. She and Thomas stood on the deck, waving to their family as the Rose began to take the wind, until they were quickly dwindling small specks. Geneva ensured that everything was in order, said one more. quiet prayer under her breath, and went to take her turn at the helm. When she looked back again, Savannah had vanished astern, there was only the sea behind her and before her, and all the world was sunlight.