A Scandalous Arrangement (30 page)

Julia shook her head, her cheeks hollowing as she sucked hard on her thumb.

“I see. In that case, we should be off.” Victoria stood and held out her hand to the small girl. Julia took it, and Victoria led her from the room.

Violet was hovering on the landing.

“So, she is going with you then?”

“Yes.” Victoria tipped up her chin, defying the other woman to challenge this decision.

Violet nodded. “I think that will be for the best. Mr. Winters is impatient; he does not understand children.”

No, but he understands money and greed, and how to bully those weaker than himself.
Victoria merely nodded and made to pass Violet. On impulse she paused, turned to her. “Our home is in Hebden Bridge, in Yorkshire. If you should ever need…” She hesitated a moment more, then, “You would be welcome there too, just you, if you have need of a place.”

“Thank you, but I will be fine. Please take good care of Julia, she is a sweet girl, really she is. This belongs to her.” Violet held out a battered wooden train, the sort Victoria knew parents often fashioned from left over scraps of wood. This one looked grubby and well loved, the green paint chipped and worn. Julia extracted her thumb from her mouth to reach for it, then hugged it against her chest.

Victoria offered Violet a smile, then passed her to descend the staircase. Her mother awaited her at the foot of the stairs, the reverend nowhere in sight.

“He went back to his sermon.” Hester gestured with her head toward the now closed study door; her contemptuous expression spoke for itself. “I saw no reason to detain him further.”

“Quite.”

“There was a maid hovering about, listening to the commotion. I sent her to the inn. Our carriage is outside.”

“Excellent.” Victoria drew Julia from behind her where the child was standing in an uneasy silence. “Mother, this is Julia. She is coming with us.”

“Ah, how splendid. I am delighted to meet you, Julia. Tell me, do you like apple crumble?” Hester turned and headed for the door, holding it open for Victoria and Julia to pass. “Our cook makes the most delicious apple crumble, and custard. That’s a nice train you have there; my son used to have one quite similar. We will be riding on a real one, all the way to Yorkshire. Have you ever been on a train, Julia?”

Perspiration dripped from his forehead and streamed down into his eyes as the man hauled the net across the silver sand. He paused, leaning forward to drag in several long breaths, then ran the back of his hand across his face. He lifted his gaze to assess the position of the sun and judged the time to be approaching midday. His thin cotton shirt clung to him, clammy against his shoulders as he bent to grab hold of the thick ropes that made up the lobster net. This time he dragged it right up off the beach into a clump of swaying palm trees before sinking to his heels in the shade. He had a flask of water attached to a leather belt around his waist and he took a long drink before getting back to his feet. He had work to do, six more nets to inspect and probably half of those would need repairs.

He stood and set off back across the scorching beach toward the azure ocean. The heat of the sand against his bare feet had long since ceased to bother him. He was hardened to it, as he was accustomed to the long, hot grind of this physical work. It required brute strength mainly, tempered by the intelligence to know when to stop. Even so, he preferred to stand ankle deep in the shallow waves to gaze across the surface of the water.

He was drawn to the sea, fascinated by it. He supposed he must have always been a seafarer, a fisherman perhaps, drawing his living from the waves, though he had no recollection of any of that. He could remember nothing that happened to him any further back than two years ago. His life before then was a blank, his existence an empty, black space prior to the moment he forced his eyelids open to see Maria gazing down at him. Her eyes were beautiful, he remembered, a soft, deep grey, her lashes long and curling. He just stared up into her face for long moments, confused and enchanted in equal measure. Then Maria broke the mood by the simple expedient of throwing back her head, opening her mouth, and bleating.

The sound was shrill, raucous, and penetrated his skull in a manner that made his teeth throb. Still, the din summoned Amos, the grumpy small holder who claimed to own this stretch of the beach as well as the noisy goat. The man privately arrived at the conclusion that evidence of anyone owning Maria was open to dispute. The goat held sway in the one-room shack that now served as home to the three of them, and appeared to have claimed her foundling as her own. Even so, it was Amos who hauled him to his feet and demanded to know who he was and what he was doing sleeping on someone else’s beach.

And that was where the problem started. The man had absolutely no idea who he was, nor how he came to be lying on his back, fully dressed apart from shoes and hat, unconscious on the shores of New Providence Island a few miles east of Nassau. Amos had just narrowed his eyes, furrowed his ebony brow, and shrugged. He observed that the castaway was no doubt on the run from something, but even so he decided to let the man remain on his property for a few days, just until something turned up. Or until his unexpected visitor chose to move on. Neither event had occurred. The man had nowhere to move to, at least not that he could remember, and despite asking everyone Amos knew no one in the vicinity could come up with any notion who the stranger was.

They agreed on a name for him—Thomas, after Amos’ father who had died on a sugar plantation close to Charleston. It was as good as any, and after a while it stuck. The months passed, grew into years. They rubbed along pretty well together, Thomas, Amos, and Maria. Thomas regained his strength, aided by Amos’ deft skills in the kitchen. Fish chowder, sweet potato, rice, and peas—they ate pretty much what they could grow or catch, and lived well enough on it. The work was hard but unhurried, and life ambled along at an easy pace. A freed slave who had settled in the Bahamas following the end of the War Between the States, Amos insisted he would spend the rest of his life doing what he liked, when he liked. Thomas had no idea what war his new friend was referring to, or which states those might be, but found the philosophy to be one he could live with. He helped with the heavy work when something needed to be done, which despite Amos’ attitude was most of the time. When it didn’t, or when they found themselves deluged by tropical rain, he tended to join Amos on the rickety veranda where they would drink lime juice, or more probably, rum, and watch the waves lap against the shore.

If Thomas had fretted about his previous life—or lack of one—when he first washed up on Amos’ beach, he had long since stopped doing so. The slow, steady pace of Bahamian life seduced him, made him lazy. He was content, happy even, in a calm, undemanding sort of a way.

Today the heat was especially sweltering and Thomas craved the cool sanctuary of Amos’ veranda. There was still work to be done though, so he waded back out into the sea, chest deep, and ducked beneath the tepid water to wrestle the lobster nets from the rocky seabed. He had come up for air having just about managed to get the next one free when a voice echoed across the surface of the water. He turned, saw two boys waving to him from a rowing boat. Rico and Pierre were local lads. Their father fished the waters around New Providence Island, then sold his catch in the markets of Nassau.

Thomas wondered how his sons had avoided being at sea with him today—Pierre senior was not known for allowing them or himself a day off unless the sea was too rough to fish. Today it was glassy, like a mill pond, Thomas thought.

He screwed up his eyes against the glare of the sun and waved back. Thomas frowned, where had that phrase come from? What was a mill pond? Had he ever seen one? He must have, or how would he have known they were supposed to be smooth? He knew, or he felt he should know. The memory danced around, taunting him, just out of reach. He dropped to his haunches again to haul on the length of netting that remained on the seabed. If he could just get the last piece free…

* * *

“We didn’t mean it. We weren’t sure just where he was. Will he be all right? Is he dead?”

Thomas heard the voices, muffled, gurgling, as though he was still semi-conscious, floundering under the water. Did they mean him? Was he indeed dead?

Amos’ voice interrupted his jumbled thoughts. “He’s coming round. Go fetch some clean cloths from my shack. We’ll need to stop this bleeding. You damn near took his head off.”

The boys’ voices receded, which was more than might be said for his headache. Thomas lifted his hand to explore the throbbing ache at the base of his skull. It came away wet, the blood staining his fingertips.

“What the…?”

“They lost sight of you when you ducked under the water, came in too close, and caught you on the back of the head with the bow of their boat. Nasty bump, but you’ve a thick skull so I reckon you’ll live.” Amos grimaced at the sight of the blood oozing onto the sand. He looked anxiously up the beach. “Where are they, idiot boys? Their pa’ll flay ‘em alive when he finds out.”

“Don’t tell him. We never meant anything.” The two boys came hurtling back along the rough track leading from Amos’ shack. “Thomas is going to be all right, aren’t you?”

Thomas lay still, his head reeling. He was dimly aware of a pad being applied to the lump on the back of his skull, and hoped Amos’ diagnosis would turn out to be correct. When people run into you with a boat, a thick skull is without doubt a real asset. Amos was muttering some nonsense about being lucky not to drown himself. It made sense; he remembered now what had happened. One moment he was tugging on the lobster net, the next he was hit on the back of the head. He’d lost consciousness briefly, then came to under the water. Disoriented, propelled by pure instinct, he managed to stagger to his feet, and the boys grabbed him before he sank again. The lads dragged him ashore, and Amos came running. The three of them tended him while Maria set up her noisy protests from the shade of the trees.

But there was more. Much, much more filling his head than just memories of a boat and the warm waters of the Caribbean. It was as though he was at the theatre, in the front row seats. The curtain was lifted, and he saw figures on the stage, people he knew, or thought he knew. Another curtain lifted, then another. The images became clearer, more distinct. More people, buildings, places he recognised. His dining room at a town house in London, a cafe in Hyde Park, a harbour, ships.
His
ships.

He struggled to sit up, despite Amos’ admonitions to remain still. He stared around, taking in his bizarre surroundings. Sea, sand, palm trees—and a bloody goat that seemed intent on waking the dead.

He put his hand over his eyes in a final attempt to clear his head. It worked. He looked around, at the elderly black islander and two lads clad in just dripping wet shorts. The trio peered back at him.

“Thomas, are you all right?” The elderly man bent to get a closer look.

The man shook his head. “My name is Adam. Adam Luke. Where am I, and what the hell happened to the
Luciana?
”

* * *

Adam shaded his eyes as the Irish coast came into sight. He would be home soon, back on English soil after almost two years.

It had been a month since he opened his eyes on that sweltering beach in the Bahamas, a month since he remembered who he was and demanded to be taken to the nearest place that could boast a telegraph service. A bewildered Amos had borrowed a donkey and cart from a neighbour and driven him to Nassau, where Adam soon located the telegraph office and wired a message to Horace Catchpole.

ADAM LUKE - (STOP) - SHIPWRECKED ON BAHAMAS - (STOP) - NOW IN NASSAU - (STOP) - SEND FARE HOME - (STOP)

He hung around the office, pacing the floor until he received a reply.

NAME OF DAUGHTER’S GUARDIAN? - (STOP)

Trust Horace to be cautious. Adam leaned over the desk as the operator punched in his one word reply:

VICTORIA

The response came in minutes:

GOOD TO HEAR FROM YOU SIR - (STOP) - MONEY ON WAY

Adam’s next stop was the Goldman Sachs bank at the heart of Nassau’s thriving commercial neighbourhood. He held an account with Goldman Sachs in New York and was able to convince a somewhat incredulous bank manager to handle the transfer of funds. Horace was as good as his word. Hours later Adam had an account in his name with funds credited to it, a room in a hotel, and had booked passage to Jacksonville. From there he intended to take the first available berth on a passenger vessel headed for England.

He had left a generous amount of cash with Amos, the least he could do, it seemed to Adam. The old man was contemplating investing in more goats, a strategy the wisdom of which Adam questioned but he remained silent. Even Pierre and Rico were rewarded for their part in his recovery. A decent sailboat seemed apt.

He had issued no such instructions to his faithful lawyer, but he assumed Horace would refrain from spreading the news until he actually saw him in person. That assumption proved to be correct when, three days later, he presented himself at his lawyer’s offices in Gresham Street. He was greeted like a long-lost brother.

“Mr. Luke, come in. Sit down. I cannot begin to tell you how delighted I am to see you. Even though you sent telegrams, I didn’t quite believe…” The man of affairs halted to dab at his eyes with his handkerchief, a habit Adam could not recall from their previous acquaintance, but his memory was still a little shaky in some respects. He chose not to dwell on that.

“Well, it is me. And I’m glad to see you too, Horace. Thank you for your prompt actions in sending me the funds I needed. I presume you used your own money?”

“Yes, sir. I did believe it was you, of course, but until I actually saw you…”

“Quite. It’s not every day a client comes back from the dead.”