Corsair Cove Read online

“I’m sure if we looked around, we’d find at least fifty more Jacque LaFleurs running about.” One of the cocky landlubbers smirked. Fifty?

  The only form of identity Jacque was able to present were his Letters of Marque, given him by King Louis and granting him permission to siege and pillage enemy ships. He kept the documents secured in a hidden pocket of his shirt which made it easier to produce should the need arise, as it had. Though the officer’s didn’t unshackle his wrist, but confiscated them while he was being raided. No matter, when he was ready to depart their company, he’d take back what was rightfully his before leaving.

  The ink had run somewhat from having been in the murky depths of the ocean, although amazingly, the bold script was still legible. Much to his dismay, the dreadful officers scoffed at the ruby as well.

  Once at the police station, Jacque was questioned repeatedly about his identity, his permanent place of residence, and something called a social security number.

  One of the more agreeable officers strolled into the hold to inform him that his Letters were being rushed off to a lab to be analyzed by a specialist. Even with his fluency in three languages: French, English and Spanish, not to mention the unique lingo acquired from lengthy voyages alongside his vast assortment of crewmen, where everyone seemed to speak in a combination of dialects; Jacque found many of the native terms incredibly foreign.

  His stomach started its violent swirling again. The blithering date haunted his every thought! He answered the officers’ questions truthfully, but still they hammered away at him. Occasionally, they’d leave him alone in the small closet of a room only to bring in others so he could recount the same tale. It seemed that these shrewd men were trying to trip him up, trying to catch him in a lie. But why? They hadn’t pinned him to any specific crime, other than the felonious charge of disorderly conduct, but were contemplating adding grand theft to the list. Foul English bastards! He may have stolen many a trinket in his day, but not the ruby. And the Letters? They carried his name! Yet they continued to inquire about his belongings, or lack of them.

  As the men talked and snickered amongst themselves, as if he were a mere portrait and not really seated there in the same room, he cursed Emmanuel Keats once again for his treachery. If it had not been for the greedy bilge rat, he wouldn’t be in this unimaginable predicament! He’d love nothing more to get his hands on the savage swab just now! His hands balled into fist at his back, causing the slender shackles to squeeze his wrist even tighter, were it possible.

  A man not dressed like the others entered the warm stuffy room. He was higher ranking than the rest as evidenced by the three men in attendance that scattered like frightened mice to opposite walls when he appeared.

  Jacque was tired of their questions; it was time to ask of few of his own. And this one had waited long enough. “What ‘tis the year mate?” He had to know if he’d interpreted the strange banner correctly.

  “The year?” The somber man glanced suspiciously around the room before returning his focus to Jacque. “Two thousand and four,” he added with an amused snort. His bronzed skin glistened through thinning brown hair above a long pinched face.

  “I beg your pardon?” Jacque scowled incredulously, not wanting to believe his ears.

  “Two thousand and four,” Detective Burk according to his brooch, repeated, though slower this time. “Are there any other questions you’d like to ask before we get started? The color of the sky perhaps?” He laughed. They all laughed. “What year do you think it is, mate?” He slurred the last word; his mocking expression telling Jacque the man thought he was seriously addled.

  Lucky for Burk, he was too dazed to be angry. Two thousand and four? Then it was true! But how? How was it possible?

  Though his travel through time would account for the drastic changes he’d encountered in the short time he’d been here, as well as these bothersome landlubbers.

  His eyes squinted protectively against the sting of smoke from the detective’s cigarette.

  “Did you hear me, Captain LaFleur?” More vicious laughter. “What year do you think it is?”

  Burk’s nasally low-pitch penetrated Jacque’s thoughts, bringing him back to the clammy smoke filled room. “I’ve no doubt it is as ye say—”

  “That’s not what I asked you, sir. Let me put it this way, before you questioned me of the year, what year did you think it was?”

  Jacque’s tingling hands formed eager fists, yet he stayed his fury and leaned forward in his chair to meet Burk’s gaze in dangerous challenge. “Aye, I’m not addled, Burk, is it? Nor is me hearing flawed. I heard full well what ye asked, and I speak the truth when I tell ye I had no idea as to the year at hand.” He paused, then in a regal tone that commanded attention, the same that had seen his crew the victor in numerous pillages, added, “When last I was on the Sainte-Anne, it was the year of our Lord, seventeen hundred and fifty six.”

  Several snickers broke through the thick silence that followed the declaration. Burk’s hand rested on his protruding belly as it joggled in mirth. “Perhaps the officers should have taken him to the loony bin instead.”

  “Avast mate. If I were you, I’d mind me prickly tongue, least ye find it at the end of a dull blade.” Jacque gritted, the goaded muscle active beneath a clenched jaw.

  Burk’s palms slapped the table with brute force. He glared at Jacque through narrow slits of cold steel and cocked his head to one side. “Is that a threat?”

  The chair rattled against the cold steel as Jacque bolted forward, intent on opening up the scoundrel’s nasal passages. The officers seized him almost instantly, forcing him at gunpoint back into his seat.

  In his moment of rage, he’d forgotten his hands were bound to the chair but the sting of resistance against his wrists painfully reminded him he was a prisoner, not the one in command, as he was accustomed. Although it was somewhat gratifying to see the display of fear jump into Burk’s beady eyes, however fleeting.

  Burk took a deep breath, exhaling slowly before he began the tedious task of pacing. Jacque sighed. This was going to be a long night.

  The detective paused in his pacing to glance at him. With a half apologetic grin, he stated, “Look, we’ve obviously gotten off on the wrong foot, so why don’t we start over?” He leaned forward to squash the butt of the cigarette in the ashtray. Smoke smoldered from the discarded half-lit stub causing Jacque to squint and wonder if it wasn’t part of the institutionalized bully system.

  “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll see to it that you have whatever it is your heart desires to feast on. You name it, I’ll make it happen.”

  Though Jacque no longer felt hungry, his stomach fought its way through the turmoil and gave a roar of protest, as it had been some time since he’d had anything of substance to eat. Two hundred and forty seven years to be precise.

  Burk smiled, thumb in his chest. “In return, you tell me the truth about who you are, where you’re from, who you’re working with, as well as how you obtained custody of those letters and the ruby. Deal?”

  “Why, ye scurvy dungbie! What the devil do ye think I’ve been—”

  “Jacque LaFleur was a traitor, a murderer and a pirating thief. He obtained his Letters of Marque from King Louis only to turn on him, his own crew and his family by fleeing off to some obscure island with his treasure and a hand full of whores. LaFleur’s family paid the ultimate price for his betrayal. Ol’ Louis took great delight in ordering their deaths, as a warning to future turncoats. Not a single one of LaFleur’s relatives was left alive to carry on the treacherous bloodline. Well, there was one. But to this day, no one knows what became of the infamous pirate. Probably the victim of some cutthroat in search of his fictitious treasure. Who knows? Who cares? Having said that, how is it that you can sit there and tell me of sound mind, sir, that you are the missing two-hundred and something year old buccaneer?”

  Jacque’s stomach twisted into painful knots as he listened. Bile burned his throat and he was grateful for the metal cha
ir, for his quivering knees would surely have buckled under his weight.

  Was it true? Had history painted him as a heartless traitor?

  Damn Keats!

  He’d suspected it, yet to hear someone speak the dreaded words aloud. His heart gave a thud. Louis had indeed made good on his threat and murdered his family.

  Tears stung his eyes; his barbed throat went dry.

  He couldn’t bear it. Better he should have died than live with the knowledge his family had went to their deaths believing him a cold-hearted traitor.

  Feeling as though an anchor had been dropped atop his spirit, he caged the unshed tears and snarled at the smug faced Burk. “What cause do ye have to speak to me of such daring lies?”

  Burk nodded at his mirror image and a moment later a man entered the room with a thickly bound text. Burk opened the hefty book to the designated page before placing it in front of Jacque on the small table.

  His heart drummed in his ears as he studied the small print, thunderstruck by the content.

  It was all about him.

  Tears blurred his vision as he read the header of the chapter and saw the small black and white image in the upper right corner of the first page; some untalented artist’s lame endeavor at his own likeness. His blood ran cold as he read the passages pertaining to his alleged betrayal of King Louis and revolt to his legendary and lethal pirate ways.

  Damn the Keats bloodline to an eternity of hell.

  He read on, his heart dumping into his stomach as he learned the fate of his beloved family. Seeing it on paper somehow made it real, and all the more unbearable to fathom.

  His entire family had been executed. All because he’d failed to complete his cursed mission!

  They were gone. From infant to grandparent, his loved ones had met with the receiving end of the hangman’s noose per order of King Louis. The grievous bastard. Had they gone to their deaths thinking him a merciless traitor?

  He forced his eyes onward, down the eerie page. Applying salt to his wounds, he discovered how the Royal Court had confiscated the LaFleur family lands, their beloved vineyards. The blood curdling passage also stated that, as reported by LaFleur’s own deserted crew, he’d tortured and killed his own father and disposed of the body when he’d attempted to hinder his treacherous plans. Tortured and killed? What had the bloody brigades done to him?

  If there were any liberation to be felt, it was in reading that the dreadful king himself had been found dead a few months later. His Royal Majesty had a rather lavish gambling vice and was in dire need of the stolen treasure to pay off a variety of accumulative debts. As Louis was unable to amend his debt, it was believed he had been assassinated.

  ‘Twas only a shame the welcome event hadn’t come sooner.

  France had eventually fallen under English rule. His country, as he knew it, no longer existed. His heart fell. His breath came hard and fast as tears rose to the surface, though he fought violently to keep them in check. He was a man, and men didn’t cry.

  Feeling downhearted and defeated, he closed his eyes and thought fondly of his father, moving onto each beloved face of his ill-fated family. An array of scenarios played out in his head. King Louis would have shown no mercy—the belligerent fool knew no mercy! How many times had he witnessed first hand the ruthlessness of France’s cold-fisted ruler?

  Bloodthirsty. Narcissistic. Perilous.

  Dare he read more?

  Though it sickened him beyond measure, he had to know the outcome.

  Damnation, there it was! Le crème in le tartlet. He winced and rubbed his eyes to make sure they weren’t playing tricks on him.

  Landsakes. The bloody passage was still there. Jacque ground his teeth, squared his jaw and gave a grunt of disgust as adrenaline stormed his body. Emmanuelle Keats had survived a brutal capture by a band of renegade pirates only to be murdered shortly after his rescue. And not before being knighted by the King of France and given his own Royal fleet to pursue the elusive turncoat.

  Merde! Must his few pleasures always be followed by a slap in the face? The filthy marauder had gone down in history as a blithering hero!

  Captain Keats, the honorable privateer—Jacque snorted—had reportedly tried to prevent the lethal LaFleur from returning to his old habits and making off with the king’s treasure, but to no avail.

  The treasure? Surely he referred to the trunk of riches?

  What difference did it make? Keats had won. Even in death, the cunning bastard had succeeded in making it appear as though Jacque was a traitor not only to his king, but to his crew and most importantly, his family.

  As if the knife had been wrenched repeatedly into the festering wound, he forced himself to read the next gut-curdling segment. The Sainte-Anne had been lost at sea within a week of his disappearance following a fatal broadside by the same band of cutthroats that had killed half its crew and seized Captain Keats.

  Captain Keats! Just reading the name left a sour taste in his mouth.

  His precious vessel, lost at sea? His throat felt tight, he could scarcely breathe. The mangy buggards. Nostrils flaring, he only hoped his callous crew had suffered greatly as she’d gone down.

  Had he been aboard during the attack, the loathsome amateurs would never have taken control of her. How could this be happening? Was it some sort of sick lark that went hand in hand with the charade of pirates he’d seen loitering about the beach?

  As though a secret had been whispered in his ear, he knew without a doubt what had transpired since he’d last seen the cursed crew of the Sainte-Anne. His pulse quickened. But as irrational as it seemed, it was the only rational explanation.

  Somehow, some way, he’d slipped through a crack in time as he plummeted to the ocean floor of the Devil’s Triangle. God help him.

  How many men, how many vessels had disappeared in the black depths of the greedy sea? His bewildered eyes fell absently on the blurry page. The date of his disappearance was noted as October thirty-first, seventeen hundred and fifty six. The same day he’d toppled from the death plank. That much was true, he had disappeared on said date. The rest of the erroneous tale resulted from the cunning deceit of his former first mate.

  What he wouldn’t give to rectify history’s fallacies.

  His voice wooden, distant and sounding defeated even unto himself, Jacque kept his head lowered to the book and asked to no one in particular, “What is the date?”

  “November first,” Burk offered, seeming surprised by the Jacque’s genuine dismay.

  November first. The century had changed, but the days remained oddly in sequence. Strange indeed. Perhaps it was nothing more than a coincidence.

  Closing his eyes, he called forth the dastardly night of his disappearance. He’d been standing atop the plank when the wind picked up, bringing shards of icy rain pelting down on him as he listened to his deceitful crew chortle and mock him; all the while praying for another chance. Dear God, could he ever forget the horror that griped the air that night? Or the luminous moon that appeared to be siding with his conniving crew?

  His breath caught on the quill in his throat.

  The witch’s moon. Of course! How many tales had his crew shared of curious goings-on beneath the magical moon? Especially in the midst of the devil’s retreat? He’d thought them nothing more than mere myths and legends.

  Until now.

  Was this the second chance he’d prayed for as he prepared to meet his doom that infamous night? If so, why here, in this time, why this god forsaken place?

  Could the mocking moon really have had something to do with his mysterious thrust forward? Giving that he had no other plausible explanation for his bizarre circumstance, perhaps he should investigate the theory a bit further. He raised his head to meet the troubled stare of detective Burk. “The moon, when is she due to be in full circle again?”

  Burk cast a furrowed glare at him and shrugged.

  “November twenty sixth,” another officer offered.

  Twenty five days
.

  If this was his chance to rectify the past, what could he to possibly do just outside of a month in a time and place as unfamiliar to him as a German custom? Hell, he wasn’t even certain his theory was correct. How could the future mend his cursed past?

  He scanned the brief chapter again. His eyes searched but did not find. He combed every line, every word, but the passage made no mention of the secret treasure having ever been found. Keats had lied. King Louis never recovered his coveted wealth. If he had, his debtors may have spared his worthless life.

  A candle of hope flickered deep within Jacque’s gullet. Was it possible the exclusive fortune was still concealed in its place of rest after all this time?

  Was that his purpose for being here? To complete his mission before the moon grew ripe again? It had to be. If he could collect the booty, perhaps he’d be transported back to his own time.

  He eased back into the seat, a cunning smile playing about his lips. The flickering hope burst into an inferno of sweet anticipation. Things were looking up.

  He couldn’t help but snicker. Perhaps Keats wouldn’t have the last laugh after all. But without his ship, how was he to get back to the prosperous cove in this century?

  With a merry spring in his spirit, the sly snicker evolved into a chuckle. His former first mate might well have been sitting beside him, whispering in his ear as Jacque heard the echo of Emmanuel’s words of wisdom. “People come into our lives for a reason LaFleur. ‘Tis up to us to figure out where they be wrung on the knot of our conquest, and use ‘em in whatever way we can to get there.”

  The clandestine chuckle broadened into a jovial wail.

  Burk’s brows shot to his forehead. “Something funny, LaFleur?”

  The smile left Jacque’s face. “Esa Keats. I’ll not speak another word until me eyes behold the beauty’s bonnie face.”

  Four

  Esa was surprised by her own shoddy behavior. Never before had she felt such hostility toward Sid. What was she doing? It had to be her father’s passing, along with the shock of the will that made them both crazy. Relax. You just need some time.