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BARATARIA BAY

T he newcomer stood just inside the doorway of the clapboard tavern.

Despite the gloomy, smoke-filled atmosphere, the lustrous green velvet of her frockcoat bespoke a richness that identified the captains and crews of the most successful privateering ships.

There were ornate scrolls of gold embroidery on the elegantly-sculped deep cuffs and standing collar.

The waistcoat beneath fit like a corset, made of fine green and gold striped satin with a row of gold buckles down the front.

Smooth black nankeen breeches were molded to the tops of her thighs, met by high, supple leather boots laced to the knee.

She wore a fine brace of pistols tucked into her belt, and as she brushed the spickets of dew off the lapel of her frockcoat, the light from a nearby candle flared briefly off the polished blade of her sword.

Pale silvery-blue eyes scanned the noisy crowd a moment before settling on a table in the most private corner. Two men sat there, deep in conversation. A third shadowy figure stood to one side, leaning indolently against the wall.

The pair who were seated matched the descriptions she had been given.

Joseph Sauvinet was a customs agent who worked exclusively to handle the sale of trade goods and prize cargo that passed through the warehouses here in Barataria before being moved up the Mississippi.

He was a small man with piglet brown eyes and a penchant for exaggerated fashion.

On this night he wore blue striped trousers and a gray broadcloth coat with a triple-layered cravat flowing down over a ruffled shirt front.

Seated across from Sauvinet was Jean Lafitte. The self-proclaimed pirate king was dark-haired with a swarthy complexion. He wore long muttonchops that led down to a neatly trimmed goatee. His clothes were the opposite of flamboyant; dirty gray shirt, brown coat, rough cotton trousers.

Lafitte had established this base in the Bay of Barataria and had under his command nearly a hundred well-seasoned captains helming as many ships.

From the outset of the war with Britain, it was Jean Lafitte who provided …

with Sauvinet’s help ... the continuous flow of black-market commodities up the Mississippi.

His privateers prowled the Caribbean like hungry panthers, capturing merchant ships, bringing their cargoes to Barataria, and filling the enormous warehouses.

Lafitte’s fleet of flat-bottom barges ferried the goods through the swamps to New Orleans and from there to riverboats that traveled north into the heart of the country.

Since the embargo, his profits had tripled.

His most valuable commodity, however, was information.

He had a network of spies that stretched to every corner of the Caribbean and as far north as Canada.

His emissaries took many forms and came from all walks of life: clerks, fishermen, soldiers, whores and priests alike, keeping him well-apprised of the goings-on locally, as well as in the northern States.

Thus, it was not entirely unusual in Jean Lafitte's world to have a deliciously beautiful and mysterious young woman whisper a cryptic message or deliver a packet of letters in the dead of night.

It was, however, unusual to have such a beauty enter a tavern full of unwashed, drunken pirate crews. So unusual that both men scraped to their feet as she approached their table.

“M’sieur Lafitte, I presume?”

“You presume correctly, mam ‘selle.” Lafitte nodded cordially. "This gentleman is my associate, M'sieur Sauvinet, and the dour-faced fellow holding up the wall behind us is Captain Sebastien Fonteyne."

Whether the captain’s expression was dour or the result of the contents in the large tankard he held, it was difficult to tell.

At Lafitte’s introduction, he offered up a low grunt and pushed away from the wall, then went to stand at the plank that served as a bar.

The woman’s eyes followed his broad back for a moment but showed no outward reaction to the name that, even when whispered, made grown men quake in their boots.

Lafitte spread his hands affably. "Alas, I must offer an apology on Captain Fonteyne’s behalf; he has been at sea these past three months and forgets his manners in the presence of a lady."

"The apology is mine to make, M'sieur Lafitte, for intruding on your conversation."

"I assure you it is no intrusion." Lafitte's sharp ears noted her manner of speech as being refined, her clothing expensive, yet her focus, apparently, was not easily unsettled in a tavern full of coarse ruffians.

"Will you sit, mam'selle? Perhaps take a glass of canary to ease the chill from the night air? "

“Thank you, Captain Lafitte. I will. But I prefer spirits over diluted wine, if you please.”

Lafitte arched an eyebrow, but reached out and dragged an empty chair over to their table.

When they were all seated, a glass of amber liquid was poured and slid across to the newcomer, which she drained in a single swallow.

As she tipped her head, the dull orange light from the hurricane lamp banished the shadows cast by the brim of her hat and for the second time in as many breaths, Jean Lafitte’s eyebrow twitched upward with curiosity.

Her face was oval-shaped with clear, smooth skin.

Eyes were an unidentifiable color in the gloom, but they were large, complemented by a slender nose and a mouth that was perhaps a trifle too wide.

Floating wisps of hair lay against her cheeks and throat, having escaped from the thick braid that hung down her back.

The light from behind made the airy threads glow in a fiery golden-red aura.

“I confess you have intrigued me… Miss?—?”

“Captain,” she corrected him. “Captain Whitticomb.”

Lafitte’s eyes narrowed. “Whitticomb? I am not familiar with the name, should I know it?”

“If you traveled frequently to Tobago, you might,” she agreed. “Or Barbados. Or Martinique. Or if you had very good taste in rum … which I see that you do. Perhaps you might know me better by my maiden name: St. Clare.”

Lafitte tore his gaze away from her face long enough to glance at the thick green bottle sitting on the table. He read the label and looked at her face again, this time with unconcealed surprise.

“You are related to Alexander St. Clare?”

“My father.”

“Ahh.” Lafitte leaned back and smiled as a memory clicked into place.

“It has been quite a few years, but I do seem to recall; a skinny, freckle-faced child with mischievous eyes and a habit of putting snakes and lizards in my boots when I did not pay her enough attention. Little Rosie with the red ringlets.”

Her own smile skewed slightly. “I prefer Rose now.”

“Honoring your great-grandmother?”

“Honoring who and what I am,” she answered.

“Might I be allowed to share in the recollections?” Sauvinet asked, clearly unaccustomed to being left out of a mystery.

Lafitte poured Rose and himself another dram of rum then tapped on the bottle. “Who produces the finest rum in all of the Caribbean?”

“Why, the Pirata Lobo Company, of course.”

“And the family that has made Pirata Lobo rum for the past two hundred years?”

Sauvinet started to say the name, stopped, and looked at Rose. His chest swelled and his nose twitched like a startled hare. “My most profound apologies, Miss St. Clare. I have done business with your father on several occasions. He is well?”

“Very well, thank you. He is currently on his way home from London.”

“And your brother, Ramsey?”

Her eyes betrayed the slightest glint of irritation. “Not in London and not here, as you can see. And as far as he knows, I am not here either.”

“Not—? Oh. Oh, I see. Yes, of course. In his position, I can understand the need for caution. Forgive me.” He picked up his ale and took a swallow.

Lafitte leaned forward with interest. “Might I inquire as to how you did not get here?”

Rose turned and gave the pirate king a measured look. “On my ship, which is anchored in a cove about a mile outside the bay, alongside the Hyperion , a British supply ship that we captured three days ago.”

Lafitte stared for a moment then turned his head slightly as if the deafness in his ears, caused by many years in close proximity to cannon fire, had made him mistake her words. “You … attacked an English ship?”

She took another small sip of rum and shrugged. “Her captain attacked first, which was not much of an attack. He thought to give us chase when our paths crossed.”

“Indeed. And?

“And … the crew needed a little persuasion before they let us board her.”

“The Hyperion ,” Sauvinet muttered after searching his memory. “A light frigate, eighteen guns, if I recall.”

“Twenty,” she corrected him. “And as I said, I was not the aggressor. The British captain fired the first shots. The Cygnet was simply defending herself against possible capture or impressment of the crew.”

Jean Lafitte took a moment to refill his glass of rum, obviously buying himself time to think.

The legalities of capturing a ship flying the French or Spanish or even the Dutch flag did not particularly trouble him.

But so far, protecting his claim of neutrality in the conflict between the Americans and the British, his privateers were warned to steer well clear of any vessels flying either the Stars and Stripes or the Union Jack.

“And so you brought a captured English ship here…for what reason?”

Rose looked at him. “I was hoping we might be able to come to an arrangement.”