“I wouldn’t,” he admitted frankly, “save that I shared Albemarle’s table aboard his flagship for six weeks. What I don’t presently know about the harbor at Havana probably isn’t worth knowing, but I take no credit for the acquisition of that knowledge.”
The general had learned of Albemarle’s expedition only the night before the fleet sailed, when a message from the War Office had reached him, ordering him aboard.
“At that point, of course, the ship would reach Cuba long before any message I could send to your mother, so I went aboard at once—this”—he glowered at his bandaged foot—“notwithstanding.”
“Quite.” John raised a hand in brief interruption and turned to his valet. “Tom,—run—and I do mean run—to Admiral Holmes’s residence and ask him to call upon me as soon as is convenient. And by convenient, I mean—”
“Right now. Yes, me lord.”
“Thank you, Tom.”
Despite the brandy, Grey’s brain had finally grasped the situation and was busy calculating what to do about it.
If the British Navy showed up in Havana Harbor and started shelling the place, it wasn’t merely physical danger threatening the Stubbs family and Lady Stanley, also known as the Dowager Duchess of Pardloe. All of them would likely become immediate hostages of Spain.
“The moment we got within sight of Martinique and joined Monckton’s forces there, I…er…requisitioned a small cutter to bring me here, as quickly as possible.”
“Requisitioned, sir?” John said, smiling at the general’s tone.
“Well, I stole it, to be perfectly frank,” the general admitted. “I don’t imagine they’d bring me to a court-martial, at my age…and I bloody don’t care if they do.” He sat upright, gray-stubbled chin outthrust and a glint in his eye. “All I care about is Benedicta.”
* * *
—
What the general knew about the harbor at Havana was, generally speaking, that it was one of the finest deepwater harbors in the world, capable of accommodating a hundred ships of the line, and that it was guarded on either side by a large fortress: Morro Castle to the east, and La Punta on the west.
“La Punta’s a working fortress, purely defensive; it overlooks the city, though of course one side faces the harbor. El Morro—that’s what the Spaniards call it—is a bigger place and is the administrative headquarters of Don Juan de Prado, governor of the city. It’s also where the main batteries controlling the harbor are located.”
“With luck, I won’t need to know that,” John said, pouring rum into a glass of orange juice, “but I’ll make a note of it, just in case.”
Tom returned toward the end of the general’s remarks, to report that Admiral Holmes was aware of the planned invasion but had no details concerning it, beyond the fact that Sir James Douglas, who was due to take command of the Jamaica squadron, had sent word that he wished to rendezvous with the squadron off Haiti, at the admiral’s earliest convenience.
Through all of this discussion, Lord John had been making mental notes of anything that might conceivably be useful to him—and a parallel list of things here in Jamaica that might come in handy for an impromptu expedition to an island where he didn’t speak the language. When he got up to pour more orange juice for the general, he asked Tom, in an undertone, to fetch Azeel from the kitchen.
“What did you mean, you stole the cutter?” John asked curiously, topping up the orange juice with rum.
“Well, that might be a slightly dramatic way to have put it,” the general admitted. “The cutter normally attends the Warburton, and I do believe Captain Grace, who commands her, was intending to send Lieutenant Rimes off on an errand of his own. I nipped across to Albemarle’s ship, though, and…er…preempted him.”
“I see. Why—oh.” He caught sight of Azeel, who had arrived but was waiting respectfully in the doorway to be summoned. “Do come in, my dear; I want you to meet someone.”
Azeel entered but stopped short at sight of General Stanley, the look of happy anticipation on her face turning at once to one of caution. She dropped a low curtsy to the general, modestly lowering her white-capped head.
“General, may I present Mrs. Sanchez, my housekeeper? Mrs. Sanchez, this is General Stanley, my stepfather.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise, and then blushed—a lovely sight, as the color in her dark cheeks made her look like a black rose. “Your servant, sir!”
“Your most humble, madam.” The general bowed as gallantly as possible while remaining seated. “You must forgive my not standing…” He gestured ruefully toward his bandaged foot.
She made a graceful gesture of dismissal and turned toward John.
“This is—your…” She groped for the word. “He is the next governor?”
“No, he’s not my replacement,” John said. “That’s Mr. Braythwaite; you saw him at the garden party. No, the general has come to give me some disturbing news, I’m afraid. Do you think you could fetch your husband, Mrs. Sanchez? I wish to discuss the situation with you both.”
She looked both astonished and concerned at this and studied him carefully to see if he meant it. He nodded, and she at once curtsied again and vanished, her sandal heels tapping on the tiles in agitation.
“Her husband?” General Stanley said, in some surprise.
“Yes. Rodrigo is…er…a sort of factotum.”
“I see,” said the general, who plainly didn’t. “But if this Braythwaite is already on board, so to speak, won’t he want to make his own domestic arrangements?”
“I imagine so. I, um, had had it in mind to take Azeel and Rodrigo with me to South Carolina. But they may be helpful to the present venture, if…er…if Rodrigo is sufficiently recovered.”
“Has he been ill?” Worry creased the general’s already-furrowed brow. “I hear the yellow jack comes to the West Indies at this season, but I hadn’t thought Jamaica was badly affected.”
“No, not ill, exactly. He had the misfortune to run afoul of a houngan—a sort of, um, African wizard, I believe—and was turned into a zombie.”
“A what?” The look of worry was superseded by one of astonishment.
Grey drew a deep breath and took a long swallow of his drink, the sound of Rodrigo’s own description echoing in his ears.
“Zombie are dead people, sah.”
* * *
—
General Stanley was still blinking in astonishment at Grey’s brief description of the events that had culminated in his own appointment as military governor—Grey judiciously suppressing the facts that Azeel had commissioned an Obeah man to drive the previous governor mad and that Rodrigo had gone one step further and arranged to have the late Governor Warren killed and partially devoured—when the sound of footsteps echoed once again in the corridor. Two people this time: the clack of Azeel’s sandals but now walking slowly, to accommodate the slightly limping gait of the booted person accompanying her.