Dark Before the Rising Sun Read Online Free PDF

ol’ Longacres is spoutin’ off about.”
    The sad little steward hung his head even lower.
    â€œHere, look alive, mates,” the Irishman declared as the serving girl arrived with a heavily laden tray of succulent dishes. “All ye need, Kirby, is some of this venison pie fillin’ your innards. That’ll get ye back in good spirits,” he promised as he eyed first the many platters being positioned on their table, then the décolletage of the smiling young serving girl.
    With Fitzsimmons’s attention fully occupied in flirting with the comely maid, Alastair took the opportunity to inquire softly of the little steward.
    â€œYou’re worried about what the cap’n might be up to now that he’s back in England to stay, aren’t you, Kirby? You’re worried because the cap’n has become a powerful man and is now in a position to settle an old score.”
    Kirby stared into his ale as if he might be able to divine the future in its mirrored surface. “I’ve lived too long with the fear of this day.”
    â€œBut Kirby, everything is different now,” Alastair told him with an encouraging smile.
    â€œIs it?” Kirby asked doubtfully. “Ah, lad, I wish I could believe that, but I know the people involved too well to be easy.”
    â€œThe cap’n is wealthy now. Indeed, he is far richer than he probably thought he’d ever be. That can mellow a man’s need for revenge. The cap’n can now forget all the unhappiness of the past. He has returned to England a successful man, even a hero in the eyes of some. He can start anew. After all, Kirby, the cap’n was just a young man when he fled England, and that was years ago. He has lived most of that time out of this country. Don’t you think he might feel differently now? London is not the same town he left, and I’ll wager that Merdraco isn’t the same place either, nor the people living around there. Everybody changes. And anyway,” he added quietly, “have you forgotten Lady Rhea Claire? Would the cap’n risk losing her?”
    The Lady Rhea Claire. No, she was certainly not someone you would forget. Even the mere mention of her name conjured up a vision of breathtaking grace and beauty in the minds of both men. Kirby sighed. Although he was not given to romantic or poetic ramblings, he couldn’t help but compare Lady Rhea Claire to a dawn sky. Her hair was as pure a gold as the first streakings of light in a morning sky. Her lovely eyes were a violet blue. And in Kirby’s opinion, she was the true treasure that the captain had brought home to England, a far more priceless treasure than the Spanish gold the captain had discovered.
    Of the chance of fate that had sent Lady Rhea Claire seeking refuge aboard the Sea Dragon that rainy afternoon in Charles Town, or the one that had put that treasure map in the captain’s hands, well, he didn’t know which was stranger. Neither story needed any high coloring in the telling, even in Longacres’s tales, which came as naturally to the old pirate as breathing, especially when he had a full tankard of rum at his elbow.
    Of course, thought Kirby, he might be wrong about the notoriety being created by Longacres’s babblings. The stories might just benefit the captain, for, in Longacres’s high-flown telling of the tale, the captain and crew of the Sea Dragon had saved the beautiful Lady Rhea Claire from certain death at the hands of murderous villains. The beloved daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Camareigh, she had been brutally kidnapped from the family’s country estate and shipped to the colonies to be sold as an indentured servant.
    Half dead from the deprivations she had endured during the long sea voyage to the colonies, Lady Rhea Claire had been fleeing her captors along the docks in Charles Town when she sought refuge aboard the Sea Dragon . Quite naturally enough, the good captain and