Free Galleon by Dudley Pope Page A

side.”
    “That hardly surprises me,” Ned said. “The buccaneers are their best customers, whether simply at anchor here or buying supplies to smuggle to the Main. That chap Fraser, for example: he knows that thanks to the buccaneers half the cloth he sells here is eventually resold by Spaniards on the Main.”
    “Well then,” Aurelia said, looking across at Diana for support, “leave the merchants to fight the Governor. They have a lot more to lose than we have. After all, the buccaneers only have to sail to another island. Once away from Jamaica they don’t need commissions or letters of marque to smuggle to the Main or capture Spanish ships and towns…”
    Diana nodded agreement but said: “For all that, in spite of any secret treaty the King might have been advised to sign or any idiocy the government might perpetrate in London, the fact is we all feel a loyalty to Jamaica.”
    “Yes, that’s the damnable thing,” Ned admitted. “We know England should keep Jamaica and we know any peace treaty with Spain will be brief and torn up the moment Spain thinks it to her advantage but …well, I suppose we’re not the first Englishmen to realize that our country is our own worst enemy.”
    “That’s pitching it a bit strong, Ned,” Thomas protested.
    “Is it?” Ned asked quietly. “Could Spain have made Jamaica’s Army disappear by throwing £12,000 at the soldiers? Could Spain have driven more than a score of buccaneer ships away from Jamaica using a few written words? Could Spain without doing anything have ruined all Jamaica’s merchants – because that is inevitable – as a free bonus?”
    “He’s right, Thomas,” Diana said, cupping her generous breasts as though weighing them. “God knows, Thomas, you of all people should beware of trusting kings and courtiers and politicians. You’re reasonably safe with pimps, prostitutes and panders, but guard yourself against the rest.”
    “What have we decided about us, then?” Aurelia was puzzled.
    “I’m anxious to see our houses completed,” Diana said firmly.
    “You just want to sleep in a big bed again,” Thomas growled. “As soon as you set foot on land you start eyeing me with a speculative look.”
    “There’s no harm in that,” Ned said. “I’m all for completing the houses – it’ll give us something to do. We can always burn ’em down if the Dons come, and anyway we have our ships at anchor waiting for us. The buccaneers will go off to Tortuga, and they’ll be quite happy without their Admiral for a few weeks.”
    He looked across at Aurelia, who was clearly picturing the completed house in her imagination. Or was she thinking of her last home, a lifetime ago in Barbados? She could only remember that place with a shudder, and the husband (since dead, admittedly) who had made her life a hell.
    Looking back on it, Ned realized just how much he (and Aurelia) had matured since then. When he ran the family’s Kingsnorth estate, and his neighbour had been the drunken sot Wilson, who bullied his French wife and treated her with contempt, Ned had fallen in love with her, but she had insisted on keeping her wedding vows.
    Until…yes, Ned admitted that in a curious way Cromwell had done him a good turn because the Roundheads’ planned seizure had stirred Wilson into such a frenzy that Aurelia had come with Ned when he fled in the Griffin with most of his staff. Since then…well, first Wilson had managed to get hold of Kingsnorth, and later Aurelia heard that he had died, so she inherited both the original estate and also Kingsnorth.
    And now – for months, in fact since Wilson’s death – they had been free to marry, but the only Protestant church in Port Royal was little more than a shack, and both of them wanted to pay for the construction of a new stone church. So Aurelia, for the time being, continued as Mr Yorke’s mistress, not his wife; but no one paid any attention – they accepted the situation, in the same way they