Read Online Night Diver: A Novel by Elizabeth Lowell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elizabeth Lowell
Ads: Link
you’re reaching for shadows.”
“Is that what you believe?” Holden asked, switching his attention to Larry’s grandfather.
The old man shrugged. “Nothing’s sure but death.”
“What have you heard about the coin that started this whole scramble?”
“It was gold,” Larry said sarcastically.
Holden kept looking at the real captain, who finally spoke.
“It’s a gold sovereign, no more than an inch across. It was minted in England, not just poured and stamped in Jamaica or made in a Spanish mold from the New World. It’s marked with Charles II’s head on one side.” Grandpa Donnelly’s voice was dry, leathery, whispering of a crossroads where Ireland and Jamaica met. “The other side has the cross and the shields of the four kingdoms. The portrait side had Charles’s long nose pointed to the left. Not many of that particular coin was minted.”
“Which makes them all the more valuable today,” Holden said.
“But you and your god-rotting bureaucrats already knew that, didn’t you? It’s the only reason you offered the salvage contract.”
“Grandpa,” Kate said. “Please remember the difference between honey and vinegar.”
Holden had to work not to show his amusement at her efforts to civilize the old salt.
“They’re English coins and England is trying to recover them,” she said to Holden. “This is hardly a surprise.”
Yet even as she spoke, ghostly fingertips slithered down her spine. There was only one treasure she knew of that was reputed to contain coins minted in England with the portrait reversed. Her parents had died looking for it.
No, she thought as her heartbeat speeded in dread. It can’t be.
“They’re far from ordinary coins,” Holden said. “Legend has it that these coins were a shadow currency, used to pay off acts of official treachery and other covert ventures. The story had it that Bloody Green himself was worth a hundred such coins, fully a tenth of the rumored thousand that were supposed to exist. It was the Crown’s bounty on the head of a renegade English privateer, Declan Horatio Smyth-Fothergill, better known as Bloody Green.”
Kate’s nails dug into her palms. When she sensed Holden’s attention, she slowly unclenched her fists. But she could do nothing about the tension that had seized her body and iced her blood . . . the vision of a dead man who was also her father sprawled in the bottom of a dinghy.
Breathe. Just breathe.
One way or another, you’ll get through this.
From the corner of his eyes, Holden watched color slowly return to Kate’s cheeks. He wanted to gather her close again, inhale her unique scent of sunlight and flowers and the underlying woman heat that drew him like a compass needle pointing true north.
“I assume you know the story?” he asked the men across the table.
Larry yawned.
“Which one?” asked the old man, taking the cold pipe from his teeth. “Hero or villain, lover or rapist, privateer or pirate?”
“Agreed,” Holden said. “It rather depends on the point of view of the person experiencing Bloody Green. In the version the Antiquities Office cherishes, the man was no better than he had to be and of great use to the Crown. While pillaging—or helping—a foundered English merchant ship, he risked his own life to rescue a beautiful young aristocrat. Apparently it was love at first sight, as the story goes.”
“My parents,” Kate said hoarsely, then cleared her throat. “They said it was like that for them.”
“That it was, Kitty darling,” her grandpa said gruffly. “It was a blessing they died together.”
Not for me. But she kept the bitter words to herself.
“In any case,” Holden said, drawing attention away from the shine of tears and terror in Kate’s eyes, “her family was quite furious. Seems they had sent the girl to wed a rich old man who had essentially purchased her. They had enough influence in court to get the Crown to issue the bounty.”
“Hardly the first time
“Is that what you believe?” Holden asked, switching his attention to Larry’s grandfather.
The old man shrugged. “Nothing’s sure but death.”
“What have you heard about the coin that started this whole scramble?”
“It was gold,” Larry said sarcastically.
Holden kept looking at the real captain, who finally spoke.
“It’s a gold sovereign, no more than an inch across. It was minted in England, not just poured and stamped in Jamaica or made in a Spanish mold from the New World. It’s marked with Charles II’s head on one side.” Grandpa Donnelly’s voice was dry, leathery, whispering of a crossroads where Ireland and Jamaica met. “The other side has the cross and the shields of the four kingdoms. The portrait side had Charles’s long nose pointed to the left. Not many of that particular coin was minted.”
“Which makes them all the more valuable today,” Holden said.
“But you and your god-rotting bureaucrats already knew that, didn’t you? It’s the only reason you offered the salvage contract.”
“Grandpa,” Kate said. “Please remember the difference between honey and vinegar.”
Holden had to work not to show his amusement at her efforts to civilize the old salt.
“They’re English coins and England is trying to recover them,” she said to Holden. “This is hardly a surprise.”
Yet even as she spoke, ghostly fingertips slithered down her spine. There was only one treasure she knew of that was reputed to contain coins minted in England with the portrait reversed. Her parents had died looking for it.
No, she thought as her heartbeat speeded in dread. It can’t be.
“They’re far from ordinary coins,” Holden said. “Legend has it that these coins were a shadow currency, used to pay off acts of official treachery and other covert ventures. The story had it that Bloody Green himself was worth a hundred such coins, fully a tenth of the rumored thousand that were supposed to exist. It was the Crown’s bounty on the head of a renegade English privateer, Declan Horatio Smyth-Fothergill, better known as Bloody Green.”
Kate’s nails dug into her palms. When she sensed Holden’s attention, she slowly unclenched her fists. But she could do nothing about the tension that had seized her body and iced her blood . . . the vision of a dead man who was also her father sprawled in the bottom of a dinghy.
Breathe. Just breathe.
One way or another, you’ll get through this.
From the corner of his eyes, Holden watched color slowly return to Kate’s cheeks. He wanted to gather her close again, inhale her unique scent of sunlight and flowers and the underlying woman heat that drew him like a compass needle pointing true north.
“I assume you know the story?” he asked the men across the table.
Larry yawned.
“Which one?” asked the old man, taking the cold pipe from his teeth. “Hero or villain, lover or rapist, privateer or pirate?”
“Agreed,” Holden said. “It rather depends on the point of view of the person experiencing Bloody Green. In the version the Antiquities Office cherishes, the man was no better than he had to be and of great use to the Crown. While pillaging—or helping—a foundered English merchant ship, he risked his own life to rescue a beautiful young aristocrat. Apparently it was love at first sight, as the story goes.”
“My parents,” Kate said hoarsely, then cleared her throat. “They said it was like that for them.”
“That it was, Kitty darling,” her grandpa said gruffly. “It was a blessing they died together.”
Not for me. But she kept the bitter words to herself.
“In any case,” Holden said, drawing attention away from the shine of tears and terror in Kate’s eyes, “her family was quite furious. Seems they had sent the girl to wed a rich old man who had essentially purchased her. They had enough influence in court to get the Crown to issue the bounty.”
“Hardly the first time
Similar Books
