The bottom of Alicia’s stomach fell in disappointment. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
The woman shrugged, almost as though she didn’t care.
“Would it be possible to speak with Mrs. Grant?” Alicia asked, hoping her trip hadn’t been for naught.
“The missus don’t take callers no more.”
Alicia sighed. This wasn’t going the way she’d hoped. But who was left that she could talk to, that could tell her about Samantha? She wrung her hands together, not sure who to ask for next. This had been her only hope of possibly finding a link to her past, to her family.
“What did ya need?”
“I was hoping that I could speak to someone who could tell me about a woman that worked here. Her name was Samantha and I understand she escaped—”
“What do ya want with her?” she asked.
Taken aback by the rudeness, Alicia paused. “It’s a long story. But I think she’s part of my family, or at least that she may be.” She shrugged. “I just wanted to know about her.”
In a sudden transformation that captivated Alicia’s attention, the woman’s eyes filled with warmth and her smile reached out and wrapped around Alicia as surely as her strong arms.
“Child, come with me. I’ll fix ya a cool drink, and we’ll have ourselves a nice long talk outside in the garden.” She yanked Alicia by the hand, giving her no choice but to follow. She drew her into the marble foyer and down a corridor to the large and speckless kitchen at the back of the house.
Before she knew it, Alicia was sitting in the middle of the garden, a glass of sweet tea in her hand and the smell of flowers surrounding her. Fanny, as she’d introduced herself while she’d made the tea, sat across from her, eyes dancing with delight.
“Tell me how ya know Samantha,” she said.
Because her manner had warmed considerably, Alicia told Fanny everything that she knew, ending with her decision to come there today in hopes of learning a little more. When she was done, Fanny had tears running down her dark cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” Alicia asked quickly. Surely not any more bad news.
Fanny blew her nose into a handkerchief she drew from her apron pocket. “She’ll be so happy yer alive.”
Alicia’s stomach flipped and she leaned forward in her chair. Behind the bodice of her gown, her heart was beating a frantic drum.
“She remembered me?”
“Of course she did, child. She’s ya sister, ain’t she?”
“I have a sister?” An impression flashed through her head. It didn’t stay long enough to grasp it all, but she was able to make out a few things. “She has light brown hair?”
Fanny nodded and soon they both had tears falling freely.
“Yes, child. And she’s lovely.” Fanny sniffled. “She spoke of ya often. She loves ya very much. Ate a hole in her soul, thinkin’ ya’d died and she was helpless to prevent it.”
“But it was pirates. What could she have done?”
Fanny slapped her thick thigh. “That’s what I’s told her every chance I got. Didn’t matter none. She felt she should have.”
Alicia accepted the handkerchief Fanny pulled out of another pocket while trying to calm her emotions. Though the tears continued, she managed to steady her racing heart.
“Will you tell me everything?”
Fanny nodded, and before long, her happy tears ebbed.
“He found ’em on the beach, promised ’em work and shelta.” She grunted. “It’s not what they got, that’s for sure.”
“There were more with her?”
“Two men from ya father’s ship. Joe and Willy.” Her chin lifted. “Good men, both of ’em. They escaped togetha.”
Alicia searched her memory, but nothing shifted. “The five of us were the only ones that made it off the ship?”
“Far as she knew, there was only three. She said she never saw ya that night, it ate at her somethin’ terrible.”
Alicia shook her head, it was all so unbelievable. She had a vague recollection of being cold, and very afraid, but nothing past that. She listened as Fanny told her, in more detail, about the pirate attack and that it was Joe who’d thrown Samantha overboard in order to save her. They were found by Oliver Grant and taken back to the plantation.
“It was a great day,” Fanny said, smiling, “when they escaped. Gave us all somethin’ to smile ’bout, knowin’ they was free on his own ship.”
“You didn’t like him?”
Fanny’s eyes narrowed. “He was evil. The devil hisself couldn’t have been any more vicious. We’s all glad he’s dead.”
“And you never heard from Samantha again?”
“No. But wherever she is, child, can’t be any worse than livin’ here was.”
“Thank you, Fanny, for telling me. I’m glad she had a friend while she was here.”
“Samantha had many friends here, child. Everyone who knew her liked her.”
“Did anyone ever call her Sam?” The words came out as fast as the thought occurred to Alicia and she was taken aback by the sureness that she’d called her Sam.
Fanny smiled, leaned back in her chair. “Joe called her Sam. I always thought it suited her.”
Alicia’s heart shook. She had a sister. Sam. She pressed her trembling fingers to her lips.
“I have some stories, if ya have the time to hear ’em.”
“Please,” Alicia replied.
Upstairs, directly above the garden, Lewis Grant sat in his father’s study—a study he hadn’t been allowed in when his father was alive—and started to pay attention to the conversation drifting through the open window.
It grated on already raw nerves that as Oliver’s only son he’d been denied the title of overseer. Though he was considered the heir, it was in name only. Lewis had gained nothing from the death of his father nearly a year ago other than a larger allowance. The respect, the damn acknowledgment that he was worthy and capable, had died in Barbados with the man who’d never looked at him with anything but disappointment.
It had never mattered to Oliver that his son had a head for figures or a deep desire to learn the operations of the plantation. All Oliver had seen was a son that hadn’t grown into the physical image his father had wanted. It wasn’t Lewis’s fault that his height had never surpassed his mother’s. Or that his bone structure was slight and far more suited to a woman than a man.
But since Oliver himself had rarely dirtied his own hands with the disciplinary areas of the plantation workers, Lewis had never understood why his size was an issue to his father. Couldn’t Nathaniel continue to discipline the workers the way he always had? And couldn’t Lewis then do the rest? Unfortunately Oliver had refused to listen to logic.
The rebuff, however, had only stopped Lewis for so long. On days like today, when Nathaniel—the bequeathed overseer—was busy in the fields, Lewis came to the office, studied the ledgers, and devoured everything he could find about his late father and the business he’d been denied. At twenty, he was more than capable of running the plantation. But the will had been ironclad.
Still, these visits had offered more than a knowledge of the plantation. It was on one such visit, the night he’d learned of his father’s death, that he’d found the journals about Samantha. Every day since Oliver had found her on the beach had been precisely recorded. Her beauty, her spirit, her refusal of Oliver’s advances that had led to his father raping her. The fury he’d felt when he’d tried a second time, only to have her attack him, help his slaves escape, and take his ship had all but leapt off the pages. He’d dedicated nearly two journals to the quest to find her and his ship, only to fail in the end. The ship and Samantha were still missing.
His father’s failure gave Lewis extreme pleasure. Oliver had never acknowledged his own son’s worth. He’d trusted hired men to act as his advisors and step into his shoes when he’d set off to search for Samantha, and he’d named those same men in the will.
But Oliver had been wrong about his son. Lewis was smart and worthy. And he’d just heard something that would finally allow him the chance to prove it. He’d just heard that fat Fanny say something that had sharpened his attention.
Sam.
Samantha had escaped five years ago. Not long after, word began to spread. There was a new force in the Caribbean waters, a pirate so cunning nobody knew what he looked like. Sam Steele. Nobody had mentioned Sam in nearly a year, and Lewis couldn’t help but wonder if it was possible that Samantha and Sam were the same person. After all, she had managed to attack his father, free a dozen or more slaves, and steal his ship all in one night. Surely if she could manage that, it was conceivable she could be a pirate. And, he thought, Sam Steele was known to use a sloop as his flagship. The fact that the ship she’d stolen from his father was also a sloop seemed too tidy to Lewis.
This was his chance. His opportunity to get the ship back, to show everyone that Lewis had accomplished the one thing Oliver had failed to do.
But his aspirations didn’t end there. Surely the treasure and riches she had accumulated were extensive. A little jaunt through the Caribbean was worth the blackmail he could profit from if Samantha was indeed Steele. He’d not only come back with his father’s ship, but return with the respect he deserved.
And judging from what that worthless Fanny was discussing, all he had to do was follow this Alicia girl.
Charles dropped the sword he was working on. It clanged to the floor.
“Are you mad?” he demanded.
“I can do this,” Alicia tried again. In retrospect, she should have eased him into the subject, rather than simply asking him to run the shop while she went to search for someone she herself hadn’t known about until the night before last.
“No,” he stated, picking up the steel. “No, you can’t. You are far too young and naive for this kind of undertaking.”
“I’m not a child, Charles. I can take care of myself.”
His eyes bulged in his head. “Here maybe, where you know people and it’s familiar, but out there?” He gestured to the window, his arm waving madly. “I’ll worry myself sick about you.” He wiped the sweat from his brow. “Your father must be rolling in his grave as we speak.”
Alicia sighed. “He’s the one who told me, remember?”
“I’m sure he hadn’t figured on you going it alone. How are you getting to Tortuga anyhow?”
“I bartered passage,” she said. He raised an eyebrow and she added, “I’ll need money to do this and I don’t have very much to spare. You can’t afford to come with me and I can’t afford a chaperone.”
“I’m sure your aunt would pay for one.”
Alicia laughed. “If she knew about this, she’d lock me up in her house, never to be free again.”
“Not a bad idea,” Charles mumbled, running his hand over the blade.
“I’ll be fine. Pounding on steel day in and day out has given me strength. Besides, I haven’t worked years in this shop without learning how to use each and every weapon.”
He sighed heavily. “And you’ll be taking along at least five of each?”
She smiled affectionately. “I promise to get word to you as soon as I can.”
Charles leaned heavily against the workbench. “Tortuga of all places is not where a young woman ought to be, especially by herself.”
“It won’t be for long. Only until I find Mr. Merritt.”
He rubbed his stubbled jaw. “It strikes me as odd that your father would send you to someone I’ve never heard of.”
Alicia shrugged, examined the rows of knives, and took two that were small enough to hide. She slipped them into the waist of her trousers. She chose a small pistol that would be easily concealed and ignored Charles’s tortured moan as she did.
“Well, it must be someone he trusts, or he wouldn’t have.” She picked a sword, held it out, swished it back and forth, and added it to her arsenal.
“Here,” Charles said, taking a larger pistol from a shelf. “You better take this as well.”
The rum wasn’t working, and it wasn’t from a lack of effort on Blake Merritt’s part. He hollered for another and knew he was in dire straits when the wench who brought it to him didn’t stir a reaction from him no matter how much bosom escaped her bodice. Normally he would have taken her up on her wink and seductive laugh. He’d have followed her upstairs and buried his problems with meaningless sex. But nothing was normal and hadn’t been for almost a week. Not since he’d gotten word.
He swallowed half the contents of his mug in one long gulp.
“Blake, lad,” thundered a voice over the curses and carousing that had the walls of Doubloons trembling. “Where ya been? ’Aven’t seen ya in months.”
Blake raised his head, his gaze scaling the giant’s body until he reached the man’s face. “Well, then, Captain, I take it you haven’t been around much, because I’ve been here for days.”
Captain took a seat, saving Blake’s neck. His large hand covered a good portion of the table when he leaned forward.
“No, can’t say I ’ave. I’ve been a little … preoccupied.” He grinned.
Knowing just what he meant didn’t help Blake feel any better. He himself hadn’t been able to summon up a desire to do more than drink lately.
“So,” Captain said, smacking the table and making it quiver, “what’s bringin’ ya by, then? It’s not like ya to stay fer long.”
Blake shrugged, not in the mood to discuss his problems.
Captain’s booming voice made Blake wince. “ ’Tis a wench. ’Tis always about one, ain’t it? Which one wanted ya to marry her this time?”
Despite his mood, Blake chuckled. Captain was right. Every time he came to Tortuga, he seemed to find himself at the receiving end of a marriage proposal.
“Not this time. Although I must say, as much as I hate those proposals, I’d greatly prefer one right about now.”
Captain’s eyes danced and he leaned back in his chair, which groaned under the effort. “Well, let’s see if we can change yer luck.”
Shaking his head, Blake went back to drinking. Captain, though, was determined in his quest. He was scouring the room, listing off reasons each of the women he spotted wouldn’t work. “No, she’s trouble, likely to cut yer throat during the throes of passion if yer not careful. That one is too old, that one too young. Her ya said no to at least twice already.” He turned back to Blake, his gray eyes laughing. “Now I see why yer alone.”
Blake raised his mug in salute and took another long gulp. He nearly choked on it when Captain slapped him hard on the back.