Authors: Paula Reed
She shrugged and handed the necklace back to him. “It has oft occurred to me that the laws God gave Moses on the mountain protect us from doing injury to others. The Bible instructs us in many matters, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that much of that instruction is open to interpretation. The Ten Commandments are not. They are clear and unambiguous. The eighth commandment prohibits me from taking this.”
“Is the Bible ambiguous about fornication?” Geoff challenged, snatching the rejected offering from her fingers.
“Nay.” Faith worried her lower lip with her teeth. In truth, she prayed every night that God would forgive her once she and Geoff were married. The fact that he had never given her any indication that he had changed his mind about marriage was something she refused to contemplate.
“‘Tis simply that you are willing to break that rule?”
“This is unfair! You know why I have broken that rule, but if I try to actually talk to you about it, you get angry. You say that I am ‘complicating’ it.”
Geoff rose and contemplated the darkness beyond the window. “Can you not see why we cannot continue like this?”
“Like what?” she asked, more bitterly than she intended. “I do but give you what you have, all along, told me you wanted, and I ask nothing in return.”
“I wanted it to be the same for both of us!”
“It is. You’re just too stubborn to see it. All my life, I have been told that this world and its ways are evil, and I have believed it because I had no way of knowing different. That belief made me afraid, and I worked ceaselessly to prove that I was good. Do you not see?” Geoff shook his head, perplexed. “We are the same, you and I. You see the world as evil, a place where you must take ere someone takes from you. No one has ever shown you any other truth, so you have worked ceaselessly to take all you could.
“You urge me to give up all that I have been taught, and I am seeing it differently, that’s sure, but what of you? Can you not open your eyes to a new truth? My love is real, Geoff, though you would deny it. All the world is not evil. We can choose to treat one another kindly and to share the love we have, even with unknown Spaniards! I was always told that God is not moved by the works of men, but I have come to see that we move each other. He admonishes us to love one another. Perhaps that is the purest way we live His Word.”
Geoff said nothing, only stared out the port and into the night. The words she spoke were so full of hope they left a hollow ache in his chest. Would that she could make them true, but she was young and naïve. A few days in Port Royal and a few months on a sugar plantation would show her otherwise. She would give of herself, and those to whom she would give would cut her, hurt her until she learned that she must look to her own interests. How long would it be ere she would realize that life with a privateer would not serve her?
When he turned back to her, he kept his face carefully unscrupulous. “There’s a girl! God meant us to love one another, and if you’ll not take my trinket, mayhap there is something I have that’s more to your liking!” He reached for her, but she caught his wrists in her small hands.
“Nay, Geoff! You hate it when I hide my feelings from you, yet you think nothing of hiding yourself from me. If you cannot love me, at least do not lie to me.”
Geoff pulled her close so that she could not see the depth of his own hurt. “Forgive me, my sweet. I have no head for this, but I would not try to hurt you. Come, let me soothe the hurt.”
What he could not tell her with words he told her with his body, and because Faith knew this, she accepted what he could give.
Chapter 15
“All of it? You let them take the entire shipment?” Don Luis’s face was purple with rage. “That pirate has pillaged two of my ships in as many months!”
“Don Luis,” Diego protested, “we had already lost seven men to the fever, and even with a full and healthy crew, we could not have defeated the English. We did our best, I assure you, but in doing so, we nearly lost the ship as well. When we made port here in Cartagena, I was told that he usually torches the ships of those who challenge him.”
Don Luis narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “So he does. But you fought him, you say?”
“With all that we had. We were greatly outnumbered.”
“I will not have this! I want this man, this Captain Hampton. I want him here, in Cartagena, to face justice for the losses he has caused me!” He pinned Diego with his blazing brown eyes. “You captained
Magdalena
back to Cartagena. Do you want to keep your command?”
“Yes, Don Luis. I am a good captain. I tell you, I made the wisest choices I could under the circumstances. I am not a coward, sir. If I could meet Captain Hampton in an even match, I would do it, and I would win.”
“Then you will have your chance. I will give you three months and lend you
Marguerite
, my largest ship. If you deliver the English dog to me, I will return command of
Magdalena
to you, permanently. If you cannot find him, send the ship back to me, but you need not return with her.”
“I will find him, Don Luis.”
“I prefer him alive, but if you must kill him, then bring me proof.”
Diego stalwartly ignored the sense of uneasiness that pulled at him. Yes, the pirate had spared his life and those that remained of his crew, but he had killed others. For that, he must face justice.
*
With a stormy mixture of dread and excitement, Faith caught her first glimpse of the island of Jamaica. This was the culmination of a daring voyage and a land filled with exotic promise. It was also, quite possibly, the end of her time with Geoff, and she felt as though her heart might burst with anticipation or shatter with grief. Which would come first, she couldn’t say.
Beside her at the ship’s rail, Geoff watched the island too, his face an unreadable mask, a sign that never boded well.
“‘Tis beautiful,” Faith ventured at last, unable to bear the silence any longer.
“Aye, ‘tis,” Geoff replied flatly.
The colorful tumble known as Port Royal lay scattered on a flat swath of land stretching between the Caribbean Sea and a long, narrow harbor. Beyond the harbor rose mountains choked with vegetation and swept by gray clouds and afternoon rain. There were woodlands aplenty in New England, but the glossy mystery of these forests surpassed anything she had known before. She knew, for Geoff had told her, that these dense, vibrant mountains were home to Maroons, those slaves who had managed to escape. It was a harsh existence, but a free one.
“Will we go ashore?” Faith asked, then held her breath waiting for his answer.
Still, there was no trace of emotion, either on his face or in his voice, when he replied. There was no way to know what he was thinking. “Aye. You’ll want to do some shopping, I imagine. You’ve never seen anything like the stalls of Port Royal. And I know of a place where we can find a room for a few nights. It’s toward the end of High Street, away from the worst of the taverns and,” he paused, “other establishments.”
“A few nights?” she asked.
“Aye.” He gave her a terse smile, then turned abruptly away to speak with several crewmembers. Faith looked back out toward the island with no better understanding of what was between them than she had ever had.
Across the deck from her, Giles approached his captain. “Her heart is in her eyes, y’know,” he commented, nodding toward Faith’s back.
“Aye, I know,” Geoff replied. “I could hardly miss it.”
“And while most would never see it, we’ve been friends long enough that you cannot fool me. Yours is in your eyes, as well.”
Geoff gazed impassively into Giles’s serious countenance. “Is it, now? And what do you see, old friend?”
“That you’re about to make the gravest mistake of your life.”
“What would you have me do, Giles? Look out there. Do you see a town where Faith would make a home? Am I to leave her there for months at a time while I’m at sea? Nay, she’ll be safe and sound with her family, and they’ll find her some pious, respectable farmer or some such. It’s better this way Giles, and you know it.”
“Have you thought to ask her what she wants? Mayhap she’d not mind a life at sea.”
Geoff’s mask slipped, and he gaped at Giles incredulously. “Surely you’re not suggesting she sail with us?”
“I’m saying that we’ve done well for ourselves, Geoff. Mayhap it would not be so very bad to give up this life and be merchant sailors.”
There was an edge to Geoff’s laughter, for all that it was forcefully hearty. Faith’s head snapped around at the sound, and he lowered his voice. “Merchants, you and I? Have you gone daft? Next you’ll be suggesting I marry the wench and raise a brood of children.” At Giles’s raised eyebrows, Geoff shook his head adamantly. “Nay. That’s not the life for you or me.” Even as he said it, he felt a little twinge. What was it? Wistfulness? Well, a bit of regret, perhaps. He’d miss her, that was sure.
Unable to bear staying on deck with Geoff, only to have him avoid her, Faith hastened below to change her clothes. She was not going to greet this new land in her hopelessly rumpled indigo cotton. For a moment, she banished all her worrisome thoughts and allowed herself to savor the long awaited caress of silk against her skin, softer even than she had imagined. The skirts of her new gown rustled seductively and shimmered around her, and she smiled in pure delight.
But she hesitated before returning to the deck above, her hand hovering at the cabin door. All the turmoil she had felt when she had first left her home returned full force, and for a moment, she felt dizzy. She was here, in this faraway land, wearing a gown she would never have dared to wear at home. She had learned much on the journey and lost her innocence. When she left
Destiny
, she well and truly left behind all that she had been and all that she had ever known.
Even if she ever could return to her family, what would they think of her? Her parents would be devastated, her brothers bewildered. In running away, she had risked everything, but she’d had no way of knowing that she would be burning her bridges in many other ways, as well. She would never again be the girl they had known and loved.
But what was done was done. She could keep her somber cotton and wool, and still she could never recapture her old self, nor could she find it within her to want to. She forced herself to twirl carelessly, letting the silk twist and tug gently at her waist before it swirled back again and settled into place like a cloud.
Her ambivalence was only exacerbated by Geoff’s reaction when she finally reappeared on deck. He glanced briefly her way, then looked back sharply. At first, his golden brows lifted in surprise, then furrowed as though he were perplexed. Finally, he smiled broadly and crossed the deck to her.
“Do you not like it?” Faith asked, nervously running her hands over the soft gathers of her skirt.
“Aye, ‘tis perfect,” he said, his face still lit with a grin. The silk was sensuous and vibrant, the style of the dress prim and straightforward. The dichotomy of the gown’s luxurious fabric and sensible cut seemed the very essence of the woman who wore it. “Never could I have imagined a gown that is so utterly suited to my Faith.”
His
Faith? Suddenly, her heart felt lighter, and her misgivings faded some. Mayhap all was not lost.
*
It seemed no time at all ere they sailed into the crowded harbor and disembarked into the noise and confusion of the docks. Faith’s fingers bit into Geoff’s arm, digging deeply into the sleeve of the claret velvet jacket he had worn when first they had met. Again, he had donned a lace-trimmed shirt and his broad hat with its flamboyant ostrich feather.
All around her the crowd ebbed and flowed, filled with as many different kinds of people as Faith could ever have imagined. There were slave ships that carried as many dark, lifeless bodies as living Africans. All were chained and looked starved beyond endurance. Some were angry, defiant regardless of the whips used by brutal slavers to subdue them. Others looked beaten, their spirits defeated, so much so that Faith doubted that they would be long after their kin whose bodies were manhandled with no respect for what their lives had once been. Reverend Williams would insist that their heathen souls were hell bound, but Faith could not believe it was so. Surely the hell they had suffered in the hold of the ship was more than payment for eternal peace.
Interspersed among these scenes of misery, pirates, ruffians, gentlemen, and naval officers moved together in an endless tide of unlikely elements cast together. Free Africans who sailed on pirate vessels walked among their dark-skinned counterparts destined to work in the cane fields. Women in dresses that fairly glowed in the bright Caribbean sun brushed carelessly against the men. They obviously gave no thought to the luxury of a man’s appearance, but rather to the gold that was as likely to be in the pockets of an unwashed buccaneer as a dandified gentleman, perhaps more so. They would pause, laugh, touch as though they were long separated lovers, not just careless strangers. At times they would part. More often, they would stroll to one of the unkempt buildings that littered the streets of “the wickedest city on earth.”
And if the merchants’ stalls in Boston Harbor had awed Faith, those that lined the docks of Port Royal left her utterly flabbergasted. There were exotic pets, from colorful parrots and cockatoos to several varieties of monkeys. The smells of spices, perfumes, and unwashed bodies blended together, overwhelming the senses. Stalls filled with cheap baubles stood side by side with those selling priceless gold and jewels. And everywhere hawkers cried out the virtues of their goods, enticing would-be buyers.
Geoff led her through the throngs to a stall filled with fabrics and lace. “Here,” he pronounced, “is just what I was looking for.”
Amid the frills and finery, and looking very much out of place, a hulking man nearly a score of years older than Geoff stepped out to greet them. He had very little in the way of hair or teeth, and the smell of him cut right through the other scents of the marketplace.