The Valentine Legacy (39 page)

Ten minutes later, Jessie picked up her parasol, for the morning sun would be fierce overhead soon enough, and headed for the village, but a mile away. She was humming, knowing that soon, one way or another, they'd know if old Blackbeard did indeed bury some treasure in that marsh. She hoped so, she surely did.

She was singing one of the Duchess's ditties about the troubles in his majesty's navy, what with all the beans and scurvy the poor sailors had to endure. It was sung everywhere, Marcus had told her, and the Foreign Office hated
it. They'd been forced to find lemons, and that cost too much money. He'd grinned then and said his wife was a rabble-rouser and wasn't it fun.

She was utterly surprised when Compton Fielding, the bookstore owner from Baltimore, suddenly stepped into her path.

“Mr. Fielding! What a surprise! Whatever are you doing here in Ocracoke?”

He smiled at her and offered her his arm. “I am enjoying a well-earned week of pleasure,” he said. “Shall I escort you to the village, Jessie? I was just on my way to see you and James. And here you are, right in front of me.”

She took his arm, smiling up at him.

“You're very happy with James,” he said, as thoughtful as a man with two bills to pay and enough money for only one of them. “I'm surprised. The two of you were always fighting. It amused me. Actually,” he continued, looking up at a royal tern who was flying just overhead, “for a while I was convinced that you were one of those curious females celebrated by Sappho, the Greek poetess.”

“Who was Sappho? She must not have written a diary, or else you would have given it to me. I don't believe I've ever heard of her.”

“No, you wouldn't have. You're a Colonial, you're a female, you're horse mad, and there's no need for you to know that so many hundreds of years ago women celebrated their love for one another. She lived in the sixth century before Christ on an island named Lesbos. There were only women on the island, it is said. Fragments of her poetry remain today. It is passionate stuff, not poetry that a normal woman would pen. Stop looking so stupid, Jessie. We're not speaking of just spiritual love, as a daughter could have for a mother, or a sister for another sister, but carnal love, two women caressing each other, kissing each other, their bodies straining against each other.”

Jessie knew she'd turned pale. She knew Mr. Fielding was trying to shock her but she couldn't think why. “I don't understand you,” she said slowly. “Why are you saying these things?”

“Because, my dear Jessie, I have you now, and I don't intend to let you go until I've got my share of Blackbeard's treasure. Not all of it, surely not. I'm certain I couldn't manage all of it, but a goodly amount, enough for me to travel to Europe and live like royalty for the rest of my life.”

She stopped then and stared up at him. She'd always liked Mr. Fielding, had spent hours in his bookstore, even more hours when she learned that James was there a lot of the time and she would have done anything to see him. And Mr. Fielding had always been kind to her, never talking down to her, offering her books to read—particularly diaries, yes, she remembered that clearly now. “You can't kidnap me, Mr. Fielding. This is Ocracoke. There's no place here to hide me. Besides, why? What is all this nonsense about Blackbeard's treasure?” Even as she said Blackbeard's name, she jerked free of his hold and turned on her heel. She picked up her skirts and ran back toward Warfield house.

J
ESSIE WAS IN
fine physical condition, but her petticoats and skirts got tangled around her legs, making her trip and stumble. She cursed herself for letting Maggie talk her out of wearing her breeches. He caught her soon enough. He leaped at her from behind, throwing her forward onto her knees. She was breathing hard, the pain in her knees deep and raw. She was afraid now, very afraid, and it was her own fault. Why hadn't she realized she was going off alone? Why hadn't she
thought
? No one had realized it. Everyone was so excited about the treasure that no one had thought, not Badger, not she.

“What do you want?”

He jerked her to her feet and turned her to face him. He slapped her hard, first on her left cheek, then on her right. “You won't try to escape me again, Jessie, or I'll just kill you. I don't really need you. All I have to do is send a note to James and tell him I've got you and that I want my share of the treasure. He won't know until it's all over that you're well dead. Obey me, Jessie, or I'll strangle you right here, right now. I've absolutely nothing to lose now, you see.”

She nodded slowly, her mind racing frantically, trying to figure all this out, trying to understand, to . . .

“Come with me. You'll like my little refuge. I've been there for two days now. Thank God the winter storms haven't set in yet. I found out all about the Outer Banks
before I sailed here. I didn't want to end up drowned when my ship ran aground on one of these forever-shifting shoals.”

“Storms can hit at any time.”

“Yes, but they won't. I just feel it in my bones. At last my luck has changed.”

She walked beside him. Soon they left the rutted path to the village, veering toward the ocean. He said matter-of-factly, “Yes, for the longest time I thought you were a lover of women. Many men have known passion for other men, but not all that many women that I've ever heard of. I watched you, and I was fairly certain, what with you always aping a man, wearing breeches, those ridiculous old hats, your hair ratty and in a braid. Yes, I thought, she's a student of Sappho.

“That's the reason, Jessie, that Allen Belmonde wanted you dead.”

Jessie, who had never imagined that two women would want to kiss each other as she did James, just stared at him, shaking her head. “Allen Belmonde? What are you saying? This doesn't make a bit of sense.”

He swatted away a big fly, saying, “He told me before I killed him—naturally I had to encourage him just a bit—that he'd tried to kill you because he was sure Alice was going to divorce him so she could live with you, be your lover. He wasn't particularly repelled by the notion. What he was, my dear, was desperate. He couldn't lose her money and he would if she left him. Her father, no fool, had protected her in that. Allen had to lower himself many times just to get enough money to pay his gambling debts. Thus, he tried to kill you. If you'll remember, I pulled you away from that wagon. I saved your life. That was happenstance, and I am grateful I was there that day. I already knew I needed you, you see, and thus when I discovered it was Allen Belmonde who wanted you dead, I had to eliminate
that threat. I needed you alive. I killed him. I saved you. You should be thanking me.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fielding.” She still felt utterly bewildered. “I don't understand.”

“Oddly enough, Allen was right. His wife would have divorced him, but not for you. It wasn't you Alice loved. It was your sister. The two of them should suit each other quite nicely when old Bramen croaks.”

“Nelda? She's a student of this Sappho woman?”

“Oh yes, indeed she is. I imagine she and Alice will move to New York, away from the scandal their union would cause here in Baltimore. But that's not really important. Naturally Bramen will leave Nelda well provided for in his will. They will do well together. I just wanted you to know that you owe me, Jessie. You owe me part of that treasure because I protected you, because I saved you.”

“You wanted me alive, but why? How could you possibly know about Blackbeard? I didn't realize I had forgotten all about Old Tom and his diaries until just months ago.”

“Turn here, my dear. Yes, that's right, into this oak thicket. It's dense and protected in here, the sun doesn't beat through the thick leaves. Ah, but these trees are ugly, aren't they? So twisted and bent and gnarly, like old women shuffling down a road.”

“I've always thought of them as old men.”

“Turn in here, Jessie.”

She did as he said, still not understanding, but knowing he was enjoying telling her all about what he'd done. He was proud. She sensed the excitement in him, scarcely leashed. She'd walked away from the house, whistling, all happy, enthusiastic, and now look at her. In the hands of a murderer. What to do?

“Sit down, Jessie. Do you like my little refuge? See how I've woven branches together so they form a roof of sorts? It hasn't rained yet, so I can't be certain it will protect us.
But it's comfortable. The nights aren't too cold. Yes, sit down, and I will tell you the rest of it. There's plenty of time. I won't send a message to James until later today. I want him to know you're gone, to be worried, finally, to be frantic.”

He lightly touched his fingertips to her cheek. She jerked away, her eyes going wide.

“No, I won't rape you. Actually, to see you now, after your transformation, makes me wonder how I could have been so blind. My mother always told me that I was possessed of great discernment. But with you, I was blind. And you've a child in your belly, James's child. Who would have thought the two of you would have married? Who would have thought James would even want to bed you? Well, that's that and not really important now.

“You probably remember Red Eye Crimson.”

She stared at him. “How do you know about Red Eye? Oh God, we all thought he was the one to protect me from. I remember him so well now, that night when he tried to kidnap me from Papa's house, how my pug saved me, how my papa told me he would be in jail until he was ninety years old.”

“Oliver was wrong. Red Eye Crimson came blundering into my shop one fine day last December. He wanted diaries, he said, Blackbeard's diaries. Did I have any?

“Of course I didn't have any. I'd never heard about that evil man even being able to write, much less keep diaries. But I was fascinated to know why this pathetic creature wanted to know about Blackbeard. I got him drunk. He told me finally how he and Tom Teach—you call him Mr. Tom—were partners, how he was supposed to have met Tom here on Ocracoke and together they would put the diaries together and then they'd have the treasure. He had Blackbeard's final diary, but it did him no good without the others. He was convinced that Blackbeard was a cagey
villain and that he'd scattered clues throughout his diaries. Thus he didn't intend to kill Tom until he had his hands on the treasure. He was nearly in tears. He said he finally arrived only to find that you'd murdered Tom—he'd watched you sneak away from the shack on the beach. Evidently he didn't see you bury the diaries. You did bury them, didn't you, Jessie?”

“Yes. We found them two days ago.”

“Yes, I know. I've been watching and waiting for my chance. You were very lucky that the diaries had been pushed up into that tree, very lucky indeed. But back to Red Eye. He followed you home, then tried to take you that night. You escaped him and then you forgot everything in that illness that followed. A child has amazing powers for protecting itself. It was all so horrifying for you that you simply forgot it. As for poor Red Eye, he did indeed go to jail. He escaped and came back to Baltimore, to get you. I decided to make him my partner. I hid him in my house on Powell Street. I sent my dear mother off to visit her sister in Philadelphia. All went well until Allen Belmonde wanted you dead. I, of course, had realized that you had no memory of Old Tom or Blackbeard or the diaries. I simply told Red Eye that we'd have to wait. I told him it would do him no good to kidnap you because you didn't remember anything. I told him I would try to stimulate your memory. That's why I gave you all those diaries to read, Jessie, all from that period of time. You recall now how I also tried to question you closely, even touching on your childhood here in Ocracoke.”

It was all so clear now, Mr. Fielding giving her various diaries during the couple of months before she fled to England, most of them at least two hundred years old, reading to her, encouraging her. He'd wanted her to remember. She said, “Yes, you always wanted me to look at your diaries. I never suspected. Why would I? I sometimes had horrible
nightmares about that long-ago night, but they were vague and usually gone in the morning. I remembered everything when I was in England. I hit my head, and when I woke up I remembered.”

“I know. That beautiful Maggie Sampson told me all about it. It was her mission to help me remember any more details about the man who nearly ran you down in that wagon. A charming creature, your Maggie. It was difficult to act calm around you and James. I was so excited. I knew things would begin to happen now. I'd already killed Red Eye—I found I just couldn't control him, the blundering fool insisted that it was a mistake, that he shouldn't have listened to me, that he should have kidnapped you and he would have beaten you into remembering. So yet again, I saved you, Jessie. Yes, I killed him, saw no reason not to since I'd read Blackbeard's final diary. Blackbeard wrote that the answers were in his great-grandma's diary. He wrote, if I recall correctly, ‘Deep in a pit, my treasure lies hidden, safe for all time.' You can't imagine how long I thought about that, but I had no answer. I needed Blackbeard's great-grandma's diary, not Blackbeard's other two diaries. Old Tom must have been a fool. Here you figured it out without Blackbeard's lame little clue, didn't you?”

She nodded. There was no point in lying, not now. It would gain her nothing. “There was no need for that clue. His great-grandmother's name was Valentine. It's true. Everything was clear in Valentine's diary. Are you going to kill me, Mr. Fielding?”

“I don't want to. Don't make me.”

“I won't. Go to James, tell him what you've told me, and he'll give you a share. I know he will. Tell him how you saved me twice. He'll be grateful. I'm sure he'll share the treasure with you.”

“You are now, Jessie? I've heard everyone saying that even though you're a regular beauty now, James doesn't
love you. He had to marry you because he seduced you.”

She swallowed. “That's possible, but James is an honorable man. He'd give you some treasure to get me back.”

“We'll see. I wish to think more about it. Speaking to you of all the details helps me think things out. Do you wish to know about anything else, Jessie?”

“How do you know Nelda is a student of this Sappho person who lived in ancient Greece? How do you know that she and Alice Belmonde love each other in that way?”

“I saw them,” he said simply. “I had come to pay my condolences to dear Alice—I felt nothing but pity for the girl, being married to Allen, who was a bloody rotter. It was late, and I saw that people were there with her already. I waited and waited. Finally there was only one carriage left. I couldn't understand why the last visitor didn't leave. Then I thought that perhaps Alice was a sly baggage and had a lover. I stole up to the window and looked in. I saw Alice and your sister embracing. They weren't comforting each other, Jessie, they were passionate. It surprised me and I'll admit it, it made my own passions boil. Isn't that odd? I've imagined two women together now many times. Well, no matter, that's how I knew.”

Jessie knew then, deep down, that he couldn't afford to let her live. He'd murdered two men. He wouldn't have told her if he'd intended to let her leave alive. What about James? Oh God, she had to protect James, for surely Mr. Fielding would have no compunction about killing him, or killing any of them, for that matter. And she had to protect her unborn child. Her hands went to her belly and lightly pressed.

“Do you need to relieve yourself? I know that pregnancy makes a woman need the convenience more often. I overheard two ladies speaking of it. I must go with you, Jessie. I can't take the chance of letting you out of my sight. I won't watch, I promise.”

She did have to relieve herself. She forced herself to get it done, knowing he was but three feet behind her. He didn't look—at least she didn't think he did. When she was done, he led her back to the small bower he'd fashioned.

The silence between them stretched out endlessly. She was afraid, more afraid than she'd ever been in her life. It was a slow fear, not one of great urgency, which made it all the more frightening because it numbed her, it helped her hide herself from what she knew had to be the truth. Time stretched out, every minute longer than it should be, surely. But eventually there would be no more time, and then he would kill her. He would kill her baby. What to do? She said, “You're a scholar. I know what happened to the lost colonists of Roanoke Island.”

His pale gray eyes glistened, he moistened his lips, then he seemed to catch himself. He laughed. “God, that's been a mystery for two hundred years. No one knows the answer, though many men have speculated about it.” He laughed. “There's no way at all you could know anything about that.”