From This Day Forward (14 page)

Jason did that? Jason had rescued her from that hellish situation. Her heart swelled with a new admiration and growing affection for her aloof husband. Ines hadn't said so, but Caroline guessed by her description that Jason must have risked his life for her. She could just imagine an enraged Jason wreaking vengeance on those despicable, brutal men. What a sight he must have been!

"Now I understand your loyalty," Caroline said, adding silently,
and
the
shadows behind your eyes.

"And you understand Master Jason's heart?" Ines asked hopefully.

Caroline rose and went to the medical bag on the table across the room. "I never doubted Master Jason's heart." Reaching inside the bag, she found the bundle of letters, taking them out with loving care. "But he cares for you. Ines, you remind him of his sister."

Caroline held the letters out toward Ines.

"I am not knowing how to read," Ines told her.

"You don't have to. They're letters, letters from Jason. I brought them with me from New Orleans."

"He writes to you?" Ines asked, her brow furrowed in confusion. "But I think you aren't knowing Master Jason until you come here."

"He didn't write them to me," Caroline explained. "He wrote them to his cousin who let me read them. Listen. 'Every morning I walk out into the orchards and I am glad to be alive. I've never felt this way before. The jungle is so clean, so untouched. Its eternal newness and beauty heal me. Every day is fresh and full of promise. Peggy would have loved it here.' He wrote that. Peggy was his sister. Ines, I have seen into his heart."

Ines stared at Caroline so long and so hard that she began to feel uneasy. "What is it, Ines?"

"Master Jason, he doesn't know you have these words?"

"No." Caroline felt the same sickness in the pit of her stomach that she had felt the day she told Jason she was a widow.

"
Senhora
,
Master Jason, he is very secret,
privado.
He must never know you have read these things. He will not like someone looking into his soul."

"Don't worry," Caroline said, turning away and dropping the le
tters back into the medical bag,
"I'm not going to tell him. I'm taking that little secret back with me. I don't even know why I keep them."

"Please,
Senhora
,"
Ines urged, "he can never know you have seen this."

Irritation began to take hold of Caroline. "Don't worry, Ines."

The expression on Ines's face as she left told Caroline that her assurances hadn't quelled Ines's anxiety. Caroline had to admit that she wasn't completely convinced herself. What if Jason did somehow find out that she was the one who had been answering his letters for the past year?

A tremor of dread shivered through her body as she bent to retrieve the talisman Ines had dropped. Love charm, she thought with a smirk. There wasn't enough magic in the world to break through the barriers around Jason Sinclair's heart.

Caroline sat up with a gasp, disoriented for a fraction of a second. She raised her hand before her eyes. Though she couldn't see in the darkness, she knew that the object she clutched was the talisman Ines had given her. The twine had become tangled around her arm, cutting off the blood flow so that her hand had gone to sleep.

The sound came again, louder this time, a knocking that seemed to come from outside. Dropping the charm to the floor, she crawled out of bed and grabbed her dressing gown as she padded into the sitting room. It came again—bang, bang, bang.

Through the window beside the door, she saw Ines standing in the darkness, gazing furtively around as if afraid of discovery. Half-alarmed, half-irritated, Caroline opened the door.

"What is it Ines?"

"Oh,
Senhora
,"
Ines said breathlessly. The urgency in her manner and the gravity of her expression stilled Caroline's heart. "Come with me, please. Emergency."

"Jason? Is it Jason?"

"Hurry,
Senhora
,"
Ines urged. "It is life or death matter."

Chapter Seven

Caroline grabbed her medical
bag and followed Ines into the darkness, forgetting her feet were bare until they touched the cool, damp bricks of the courtyard. She glanced around anxiously, glad for the full moon that made it possible to keep Ines in her sights.

They crossed the patio, Ines's manner furtive as she stared at the windows and doors of the silent house. At the edge of the jungle, she halted, turning to look at Caroline warily.

"
Senhora
,
I must ask a promise from you," she whispered.

"What?" Caroline asked, ready to agree to anything in order to get on with whatever they were about. She had a feeling in the pit of her stomach that something terrible had happened to Jason, and she wanted to get to him as quickly as possible. "We're wasting time, Ines. I'll do anything. Just go. Show me the way."

Ines stood her ground, ignoring the urgency in Caroline's tone.
"
Senhora
,
you must promise not to speak of anything you are about to see."

"I promise!" Caroline replied impatiently. "Can we go on?"

"Not even to Master Jason."

Relief flowed through Caroline like the swiftly moving river. Whatever tragedy waited for her in the darkness beyond the house, it wasn't Jason. It had nothing to do with Jason, except that Ines was asking her not to mention it to him. "But why?"

"Please,
Senhora
,
no one is to know of these things. Master Jason would be very angry...."

"What you're saying is that whatever it is, Jason doesn't want me to know about it." Ines's silence confirmed Caroline's accusation. "What if I refuse?"

Ines hung her head in defeat. "Then I would take you there anyway. Someone will die if I don't."

Curiosity and indignation warred inside Caroline—curiosity to see what was so secret, and indignation that Jason had thought to keep something so obviously important from her.

Ines peered up at her, though she didn't lift her head. She couldn't let Ines down; whatever this was, Ines considered it extremely important. Besides, she would be leaving soon. What difference could it possibly make to her? "All right, Ines, I promise."

Ines's expression brightened instantly. "
Obrigado,
Senhora
.
Now, follow closely, and be very quiet."

Ines turned and led the way along a path lined with wild pineapple bushes and tree ferns. The earth was damp and soft beneath Caroline's bare feet. Mud oozed between her toes, and sharp objects scratched the tender flesh. She wished fervently that she had taken the time to get her shoes. It was a selfish thought. Had she known the crisis didn't involve Jason, she would have taken the time to dress properly.

They hadn't walked far when Ines turned sharply to the left. There in front of them was a small rundown shack that Caroline had never noticed before.

"Amazing!" she said in wide-eyed astonishment. "How could I have never seen it?"

Bits of memory came back to her. Both Jason and Ines had cautioned her not to explore the
fazenda
alone, and now that she thought of it, Jason had always steered her away from this area. Something terribly important must have happened for Ines to break Jason's confidence like this.

The door groaned as Ines pushed it open, and a dim light spilled out of the shack. With one last furtive glance around, Ines entered the structure and Caroline followed.

An indistinct shadow moved against the far wall, wavering and stretching as someone stood—a woman, a gaunt-looking woman with skin as black as any African Caroline had ever seen on the street in New Orleans.

Ines and the woman exchanged words in Portuguese, while Caroline took the opportunity to inspect the space more closely. It looked like a storehouse, with lanterns and blankets and mismatched china stacked against one wall. Along another were barrels, the contents of which were indiscernible. In a corner of the room, the corner the woman had
vacated
stood a small makeshift cot. Straw stuffing spilled out onto the floor; a dingy white blanket covered the whole thing.

On the crude cot a fragile form lay still and silent.

Instinctively, Caroline started forward, her throat tightening at what met her gaze. The form on the bed, so still, so small, was a child.

A shriek from behind her stilled Caroline before the gnarled hand reached out and grabbed her by the arm. She turned to look into the terrified eyes of the black woman. Ines continued to talk reassuringly to her, but the woman showed no sign that the words penetrated her distrust.

Caroline had no words to give her. She didn't understand her language, and even if she did, all she could say was that she would do her best to help her child. Tentatively, she reached up and covered the woman's trembling hand with hers in a gesture of concern and confidence.

Tears started in the woman's eyes. Her grip on Caroline's arm loosened and Caroline turned back to the child. Kneeling beside the cot, she turned the small body over, unfurling it gently from its fetal position.

Despite her efforts, a gasp escaped her control at the sight of angry red spots that covered the child's exposed arms. A hand to his forehead told her he was burning up with fever. Quickly she sat on the cot and opened the medical bag, withdrawing her father's horn-shaped stethoscope. Ignoring the jerky movement behind her, she pressed one end of the instrument to the boy's chest and the other to her ear.

"Tell her I won't hurt him," Caroline said to Ines. "Tell her I'm listening to see how sick he is."

Ines spoke to the woman soothingly as Caroline continued her examination. The sound of fluid in the child's lungs confirmed her worst fears.

Caroline turned to face Ines. "Where did this child come from?"

Ines darted an anxious look at the African woman. Neither of them spoke.

"Is she the mother?" Caroline asked, moving toward the black woman who retreated in terror. "I have to examine her. Tell her."

Whatever Ines said to the woman seemed to calm her. She stood still while Caroline drew apart the folds of her garment to inspect her neck and upper chest. Red pustules dotted her ebony skin as Caroline had known they would. Reaching into the medical bag, she said to Ines, "I need to see inside her mouth."

"Inside her mouth,
Senhora
?"

A flat metal tongue depressor in her hand, she turned back to the frightened woman. "Open your mouth wide," she said, opening her own as an example.

Ines translated, but the woman showed no sign of obeying.

"Ines, let me do it to you," Caroline said.

Ines backed away as Caroline moved toward her. "I am not sick,
Senhora
."

"I know, but if she sees that I don't hurt you, she might let me do it to her. Be still, Ines. Have I ever hurt you?"

Ines stood before Caroline, her eyes wide, her mouth closed tightly.

"I'm going to put this stick on your tongue to hold it down so I can look into your throat. It won't hurt, I promise."

Reluctantly, Ines opened her mouth. She flinched when Caroline touched her tongue with the depressor but didn't move. Caroline withdrew the metal stick and wiped it on a clean linen cloth she kept in her bag.