Borrowed Plumage
Summary
On the eve of ragged twilight, when the North Sea hisses like a kettle about to boil, the Earl of Selkirk’s battlements stand emptied by rumor alone: the Yankee reiver John Paul Jones is steering his guns toward these granite cliffs. Servants scatter like starlings; only Nora, the soot-streaked scullery wraith, remains, her wrists still red from scrubbing ancestral pewter. With the castle echoing, she ascends the spiral in silence, fingers grazing moth-eaten brocade until she finds the chatelaine’s gown—pearl-latticed silk the color of old insomnia. She slides inside its weight, feels whalebone bite her ribs, and suddenly the mirror shows not a drudge but a sovereign. When scarlet-cloaked dragoons thunder through the portcullis, their lieutenant bows to the counterfeit lady; she lifts her chin, offers wine cellars and venison, and the entire garrison dines by candle-glow while portraits of the absent gentry leer from oak-paneled shadows. Miles offshore, aboard the privateer Ranger, third officer Darby O’Donovan—eyes the shade of kelp—recognizes the jagged silhouette: the island that banished him for poaching salmon and loving beneath his station. He requests shore leave, steps onto the quay in borrowed velvet, and strides into the great hall just as Nora, goblet aloft, laughs a little too loudly. Recognition detonates between them like musket flash; yet decorum must be kept. Later, a net-mender spills the truth—Darby is no squire but a mariner under the skull-and-crossbones—and irons clap shut around his wrists. Nora, refusing bereavement, shears her hair, binds her breasts, wriggles into a dragoon’s coat, and beneath a moon riven by scudding clouds she signals three lanterns from the cliff. Cannons answer; surf reddens; sabers sing. At dawn the pirates weigh anchor, and the girl once condemned to hearth ashes sails westward, skirts traded for horizon, her lover’s pulse drumming against her spine as the mizzen catches the wind.
Synopsis
The Earl of Selkirk and his family learn of the impending arrival of American pirate John Paul Jones, they flee their castle, leaving behind Nora, the kitchen maid. Left alone in the house, Nora dons the clothes of her mistress and parades herself about the castle until the arrival of the king's light infantry. Because they mistake her for the lady of the house, she invites them to be her guests. Meanwhile, on board the pirate ship, third officer Darby O'Donovan recognizes the little island as his former home. Sent ashore by the commanding officer to investigate, Darby sees Nora, his old sweetheart, seated at the table with the redcoats and, impersonating an Irish gentleman, he interrupts the gathering. Later, a fisherman exposes Darby's true identity and he is arrested. Nora, determined to save her lover, disguises herself as a soldier and signals the pirate ship for help. After a thrilling battle between the pirates and the soldiers, the pirates escape and Darby sails to America accompanied by Nora.
