He looked for Scipio, but did not see him.

  Fawcett glanced nervously around. The sight of thirty Negroes, all wielding the viciously sharp cane knives, left him uncomfortable.

  ‘Are the guards for our protection?’

  Crow winked at him. ‘Gallant officers like yourselves don’t need no protectin’. These are to stop the runaways.’

  ‘But where can they go?’ asked Midshipman Brompton. The fat youth gestured to the mountain rampart towering in the distance over the cane. ‘You are surrounded by impenetrable cliffs and forests.’

  Crow lowered his voice. ‘They go to the Maroons.’

  Half a dozen blank faces looked at him.

  ‘Who are the Maroons?’ asked Rob.

  ‘Escaped slaves. Been living in the mountains for years. Mostly they keeps to themselves.’

  ‘And you let them run free?’ said Coyningham.

  ‘Them mountains is near impossible to get into. We got an understandin’. We leaves them in peace, and they brings back the runaways for the bounties we give ’em.’

  ‘Then why do your slaves flee to them, if they know they will be returned?’ asked Rob.

  Crow shrugged. ‘Man has to hope for somethin’.’

  ‘They betray their own kind?’ said Fawcett.

  ‘Set a thief to catch a thief.’ Crow glanced at the sun. ‘Best get back. Mr Bracewell will be wanting you soon enough at the big house.’

  E

  verything about Bracewell’s mansion was monumental. It stood like a mountain at the top of the cliff overlooking the bay, four storeys high and built of stone. Dark arches opened into the ground floor, while the windows above were small and tight. A house built to intimidate, not welcome. A long stepped walkway led up to it, lined with stone fish ponds and shaded by tamarind and palm trees. At the top, a stone obelisk thrust to the sky, almost as high as the house.

  They were sweating and out of breath when they reached the end of the walkway. The sun was still hot, yet as they stepped into the shadow of the great obelisk Rob felt a chill go through him.

  Bracewell’s corpulent frame leaned over the iron railings on the first-storey balcony. He looked down on them, a smile playing over his lips.

  ‘Captain, lieutenants, gentlemen – welcome to Thebes Plantation.’

  The moment they stepped inside, Rob felt he had passed through a magic curtain to a different world. As brutally austere as the outside of the house had been, the inside was opulent to the point of madness. The floors were marble, the rooms lined with fluted columns painted in gold leaf. Huge gilded mirrors hung on every wall, so that each room seemed to stretch away to infinity. Rob and his companions were reflected back on every side, from every angle. It gave him the disconcerting feeling of being surrounded.

  Serving girls emerged from behind the pillars, bringing champagne in crystal goblets on silver trays. The men from the Perseus stared at the slaves with the lust of men who had spent weeks cramped aboard ship. The women wore gold collars around their necks and flimsy white loincloths tied across their hips. They were bare-breasted, their eyes downcast as they served the drinks. Rob scanned them to see if Phoebe was among them but he did not see her.

  Midshipman Brompton saw Rob looking around.

  ‘Sight for sore eyes, eh?’ he said in a loud voice.

  He had not yet emptied his glass and he was already slurring his words. Rob guessed he had been drinking before they left the ship.

  ‘Which one d’you like best?’ Brompton asked. ‘Me, I’m taking that one.’ He pointed to a statuesque, high-breasted woman with copper-coloured skin. ‘Tits like a pair of twenty-four pound cannonballs.’

  Rob gave him a look that could have cut steel. Brompton, oblivious, continued.

  ‘Mr Bracewell said we could have whichever we liked after supper.’

  Rob considered the women with new pity. None of them appeared older than him, and many were younger. When one caught his gaze for a second, he saw abject terror in her eyes.

  ‘They’re slaves, see,’ said Brompton. ‘You can do what you like with them.’

  Whatever else he might have said was drowned out. A muscular male slave, also wearing nothing but a loincloth, struck a bronze dinner gong that made the mirrors tremble in their heavy frames.

  ‘Dinner is served,’ said Sophie.

  Rob hadn’t seen her enter. As soon as he saw her, he wondered how he could have missed her. Her dark hair was piled up in ringlets, her eyes were rimmed with kohl and her lips had been painted a seductive red. She wore a yellow silk dress that shimmered in the candlelight, cut so low and tight across the front that she was one loose stitch away from being as exposed as the slave girls.

  She smiled at Rob, then linked her arm in Coyningham’s and led him to the dining room. Rob followed, hating every second. The garish gold trappings made him feel dizzy. The plight of the slave girls, knowing what was to happen to them later, sickened him. But he had to stay, if only for the chance of seeing Phoebe.

  The dining room was at the back of the house, overlooking the bay. It looked like a Roman emperor’s palace. Soaring columns formed a double colonnade down the sides of the room, painted with gold and blue bands. The walls were decorated with scenes of bare-breasted maidens delivering tribute to a god on a throne. Life-size statues of Bacchic figures watched from alcoves, with grotesque animal heads and enormous erect phalluses. The candlesticks were shaped like snakes, strangely lifelike, twisting upwards, with the candles protruding out of the serpents’ mouths like mice being devoured.

  A long dining table ran the length of the room. Bracewell took his place at the head of the table, in a mahogany chair big enough for three men to sit in. Through the arched windows behind him, the anchored Perseus looked no bigger than a child’s toy. Bracewell seated Coyningham on his right, with Sophie beside Coyningham. Rob tried to find a place further down the table, but Sophie indicated the seat opposite her and called out, ‘Do join us, Lieutenant.’

  Rob obeyed. The evening felt like a sadistic punishment: he feared where it would end. But he knew if he resisted her, she would find still crueller ways of making him pay.

  The champagne was exquisite, and miraculously cold. Rob sipped it as if it were poison. The servants brought the food. Even in his wildest nights with Hugo in London, Rob had never seen such a meal. There were hot and cold meats, stewed and fried and grilled; pickled fish and plain fish; pepper-pot, cassava bread, pineapples and other tropical fruits. A turtle soup was brought in a huge silver tureen. There were glasses of hock, bumpers of claret and tumblers full of Madeira.

  Rob enjoyed none of it. He listened as the voices became louder and coarser. He watched how the junior officers treated the semi-naked serving girls, the way their hands crept possessively inside the loincloths to fondle the girls’ thighs or grab their buttocks. They moved their glasses out of the way, so the girls had to bend low over the table to refill them, their breasts hanging in front of the officers like ripe fruit. Rob saw Midshipman Brompton grab a girl’s breast and twist her nipple until she gasped with pain. Sophie chattered happily as if she had not noticed. Her uncle presided over the table with a complaisant smile on his face, enjoying the sight of his guests debauching themselves.

  Rob tried not to drink too much. He had to keep his wits about him – and his temper. He knew Sophie would find a way to provoke him, and he could not risk losing control. But there was little else to do. He did not participate in the conversation. He drained one glass, then several more. He began to slide lower in his chair, wishing he could disappear under the table.

  ‘What did you make of the plantation, Mr Coyningham,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Very interesting,’ said Coyningham, attacking a chicken leg with his knife and fork. ‘Clearly you have a deuce of a job getting those Negroes to work.’

  ‘They are as devious as children,’ said Sophie, ‘and as idle. But a bite of the whip usually makes them sit up and do their duty. Do you not find the same, Captain?’

  Coyningham choked on his wine. ‘I hope you are not comparing British tars to your darkies?’

  Sophie flashed a smile that showed all her teeth.

  ‘There is a clergyman in London who says that beneath their dark skins and horrid faces, the Negroes are no different to you and I.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Coyningham gave up with the knife and fork. He picked up the chicken leg and started ripping at it with his teeth. ‘What an outlandish notion.’

  ‘You must be thirsty.’

  Sophie beckoned a slave to refill Coyningham’s glass. The girl’s breasts brushed his shoulder as she leaned in. He squirmed with embarrassment.

  Sophie turned to Rob.

  ‘And you, Lieutenant? What do you think of our methods?’

  ‘I think the Devil himself would recoil from them,’ said Rob.

  Sophie laughed, as if he had made a fine joke. But Bracewell, who had been listening to the conversation from his throne, said, ‘You disappoint me, Lieutenant. I would have thought a man of action would not be so delicate in matters of discipline. Negroes are feeble creatures.’

  ‘What about the Maroons?’ said Rob.

  ‘What of them?’

  ‘If the Negroes are as feeble as you say, how are the Maroons able to escape and live free in the mountains?’

  ‘Hogs live wild in the mountains, too.’ A dribble of blood from the meat ran down Bracewell’s chin and dripped on the table. ‘But that does not mean we cannot run them to ground when we choose to go hunting.’

  ‘Is the sport good on the island?’ asked Coyningham.

  Bracewell started to lecture him about the quality of the island’s game, but Rob had stopped listening. A door had opened behind one of the columns, letting in a procession of slaves bearing plates of jellies and sweets in exotic shapes. And there, among them, was Phoebe. Rob’s stomach knotted to see her. She was dressed like the others, bare-breasted, wearing only the gold choker around her neck and the thin loincloth that covered almost nothing.

  She stood next to Sophie and placed a jelly on the table. Rob stared at her, trying to make eye contact, but Phoebe kept her face turned down.

  Sophie missed nothing.

  ‘Look at your handsome suitor,’ she commanded. ‘Lieutenant Courtney is eager to admire your beauty.’

  Phoebe raised her head. Rob gasped. The skin around both eyes was bruised black, with more bruising around her neck as if someone had tried to throttle her. There were scars on her cheek that looked as if they’d been made by burning hot iron.

  Rob’s fury boiled over. ‘What have you done?’ he hissed.

  The jelly Phoebe had brought was in the mould of a sphinx, sitting on a bed of whipped cream. Sophie scooped up a handful and sucked it off the end of her finger.

  ‘You must not worry,’ said Sophie carelessly. ‘If I break her, I can always buy another.’

  The serving girls had departed. Phoebe made to go but a gesture from Sophie stilled her.

  ‘Stay here.’

  Without taking her eyes off Rob, she slipped her hand into Phoebe’s loincloth, working her fingers up the inside of her leg. Phoebe stood motionless, only the slightest tremor betraying her.

  ‘Is this what you wanted?’ Sophie asked Rob.

  She squeezed Phoebe’s thigh. Her hand rose higher, pushing back the cloth to reveal the tops of Phoebe’s thighs, the inward line of her hips and the small triangle of black hair where her belly curved in.

  A drunken argument had started at the other end of the table. The officers were braying loudly, their faces smeared with cream and wine and jelly. Next to Sophie, Coyningham was deep in conversation with Bracewell, listening to him talk about sugar prices. No one else noticed Sophie as, with her finger and thumb, she pried apart the lips of Phoebe’s womanhood.

  ‘Let her be,’ whispered Rob, gripping the table so hard his knuckles turned white.

  Sophie jerked her hand. Phoebe gasped with pain as Sophie’s fingers thrust into her. A tear budded in her eye and rolled down her cheek. Rob gripped his dinner knife and imagined driving the point through Sophie’s flawless breast, into whatever passed for a heart beneath.

  But Crow was standing behind Sophie, leaning against one of the pillars. His coat was unbuttoned, so Rob could see the walnut butt of a pistol gleaming against his shirt. Crow rested his hand on it, ready to draw and fire before Rob could act.

  Rob opened his mouth to speak, but Sophie reached across the table and pressed a finger to his lips. He could smell Phoebe on her skin.

  ‘Think carefully before you say anything,’ said Sophie. ‘In the house, I only play with my servants. You have seen what we do to them in the fields.’

  Bracewell stood and clapped his hands. ‘It is time we gentlemen retired to the lounge. I have some entertainment there that I believe you will find most agreeable.’

  ‘But not Mr Courtney,’ said Sophie smoothly. ‘He is required at the ship to keep watch. Is that not so, Captain?’

  Coyningham’s face lit up at the prospect of getting rid of Rob.

  ‘Indeed, Miss Bracewell.’

  The other officers had started making for the drawing room. Their laughter echoed down the passage, crude and raucous. Rob did not have to guess what kind of entertainment Bracewell had planned. He wanted no part of it.

  But the one thing worse than being there would be leaving Phoebe to face it alone.

  ‘The jollyboat will not be returning for another three hours,’ Rob objected.

  ‘There is a lamp down at the jetty,’ said Coyningham. ‘When you get there, signal the Pegasus to send the boat. Return to the ship, and then send the jollyboat back to await the rest of us.’

  The serving girls followed the officers out. As Phoebe disappeared through the door, she cast a look at Rob. His heart lurched. He wanted to run after her, to pull her back and save her from Bracewell’s debauchery. She saw the intention in his eyes and shook her head a fraction.

  A heavy hand descended on Rob’s shoulder. Crow had stepped away from his pillar.

  ‘Best be getting you away, Lieutenant,’ he said with mock courtesy, his hand still on the butt of his pistol. ‘Afore there’s any trouble.’

  The drawing room door closed behind Phoebe. Rob listened to the shouts and laughter coming from behind it, the sounds of men ready to take their pleasure. He wanted to murder someone.

  The doorbell clanged.

  ‘Who the devil can be calling at this time of night?’ Bracewell motioned to the doorman, a slave in red livery standing still as a statue. ‘Open it, damn you.’

  The door swung in. The visitor stepped into the brightly lit hallway. His clothes were worn and travel-stained, his face haggard with fatigue. He was clutching a letter in his hands, bound with many knots and seals. As soon as he had crossed the threshold, he made straight for Bracewell.

  Crow jabbed his fist into the small of Rob’s back to push him through the open door. Evidently Bracewell wanted to be left alone with his new guest. Rob stumbled forwards, jostling into the new arrival as they crossed in the middle of the hallway.

  The visitor looked up in annoyance. His eyes met Rob’s, and Rob saw the last person he ever expected to see.

  Hugo Lyall.

  H

  ugo stared as if he had seen a ghost. He had cursed Rob’s name every day for the last three months, every mile of his miserable journey to this godforsaken spot. And now he had arrived, there was Rob waiting like the arms of Nemesis. It was impossible.

  Before Hugo could speak, Bracewell’s ugly-looking manservant hustled Rob into the night. The slave closed the door, leaving Hugo to wonder if he had imagined it.

  Bracewell snatched the letter out of his hands. He examined the seals carefully while Hugo waited, sipping the wine that a servant brought him. It sounded as if there was an orgy going on in the drawing room – Hugo could hear full-throated moans and ecstatic cries. To his disappointment, Bracewell took him past the drawing room and into his study.

  Bracewell slit open the packet and read the letter. Everything was Rob’s fault, Hugo thought bitterly. If he hadn’t met Rob, he would never have crossed paths with Baron Dartmouth, would never have been drawn into whatever feud Dartmouth carried against the Courtneys.

  A week after the fire at the warehouse, the confrontation at the docks and Rob’s escape with the Royal Navy, Dartmouth had summoned Hugo to his chambers once again. Hugo had needed most of a bottle of wine to gather the courage to go, though he knew he had no choice. A word from Dartmouth to his father could still see him cut off without a penny.

  Rob’s sword lay on Dartmouth’s desk, like a relic on an altar. Dartmouth stroked his golden hand over the blade, metal rasping on metal.

  ‘I have an errand for you,’ he said, without pleasantries.

  The throbbing of the wine in Hugo’s head intensified. The guilt of what he had done to Rob had eaten away at him: the prospect of having to do more was intolerable.

  ‘Have I not done enough for you?’

  ‘You have done nothing.’ Dartmouth spat the words. ‘Robert Courtney is still alive.’

  ‘I hope you do not expect me to join the Royal Navy to go after him,’ said Hugo, trying to lighten the mood.

  ‘That will not be necessary.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  ‘I require you to go to Jamaica.’

  Hugo’s mouth dropped in horror. ‘Jamaica?’

  ‘Your father has estates there, does he not?’

  ‘Indeed, sir. But . . .’

  It hardly needed to be said that the reason for owning sugar estates was to earn enough money to leave them as far behind as possible. The only men who stayed in the West Indies were those who could not leave, either because they were too poor to afford it, or because they were slaves.

  ‘The climate is disagreeable,’ Hugo said.

  ‘I lived the first fifty years of my life in India,’ snapped Dartmouth. ‘For disease, heat and murderous blacks, I assure you India makes Jamaica seem as pleasant as Surrey.’ His fingers closed around the hilt of the sword. ‘Unless you wish me to speak to your father.’

  Hugo swallowed. ‘I am at your service.’