Beloved Captive (18 page)

She’d never asked Isabelle about her time as a slave, though Emilie knew her sister must have seen awful things. Awful things that were meant for her, not for Isabelle, she reminded herself.

Given the fact she’d been trained as a courtesan in anticipation of her life as a kept woman in the awful tradition of the day, likely Isabelle had done things that tugged at her heart and mind. Yet her countenance was always marked with peace, and it seemed she’d adjusted to her new life of freedom with ease. She’d certainly found happiness with a wonderful, godly husband, a beautiful son, and in-laws who knew of her past and adored her in spite of it.
 

Perhaps Isabelle can tell me how the forgetting and getting on with life is done.

Indeed, Izzy’s journey from slave to wife and mother had the touches of God’s hand all over it. From her husband’s return to the Lord, to his reunion with his parents and their move to Fairweather Key, all had not only ended well but had made for a beautiful testimony of what God can do.

They stopped on a bluff overlooking a deserted stretch of waterfront. Here the water did not lap against a sandy beach but rather pounded rocks and craggy outcroppings covered with thick vegetation. The only signs of life in this lonely spot were the occasional fishing cabins dotting the distant horizon.

Emilie spied one in particular, a ramshackle place that looked oddly out of place atop the highest rise on the island. It appeared empty and unused, yet the view from its rooms must have been spectacular.

Quite the opposite of how she felt. Though she appeared, she hoped, to still be the same Emilie who had left Fairweather Key many weeks before, she now felt as empty as that cabin looked.

Barren. Lost. Sitting atop a windswept hill with nothing but daylight and darkness for company. Emilie released her grip on Isabelle’s arm and wrapped her arms around her chest. Her face lifted to the sky, she closed her eyes and let the sun do its job of warming her face, turning the backs of her eyelids from deep purple to fiery orange.

When she opened her eyes, she found Isabelle staring. Not surprising considering the turn of conversation.

Would Izzy always look at her in that way? As a woman forever marked by the life she had taken?

“I’m terribly sorry for the injustice done to you, Isabelle,” she said. “If I could somehow change it, I would.”

Isabelle reached to touch her hand. “I’ll not speak of this again, nor will you.” She met Emilie’s gaze. “It is the only way we can move forward without the devil taking a foothold between us.”

“Agreed,” Emilie said as she unceremoniously flopped onto the grassy ground, caring not what ruin she might be making of the flower-sprigged frock she wore.
 

What did she care? Even the clothes on her back reminded Emilie of the Benning, for it was the man with the pipe, clearly a member of the Benning clan, who’d brought it to her along with the selection of other dresses that filled her carpetbag. All that was Emilie Gayarre had gone down with the
Sunday Service
, leaving only the shell of a murderous woman and the water-soaked miniature of a mother she never knew. Every stitch of clothing she owned was bought with Benning money.

Or at least the money of the man at whose command Benning’s body was removed from that room. The thought of money caused her to think of the gold Papa had given her for the school, gold that was now gone.

“Izzy, I depress myself.” She attempted a laugh, but the sound was brittle and humorless.
 

“Oh, honey.”

Emilie watched her sister settle beside her and noticed the unshed tears swimming in her green eyes. Again, she was struck by Isabelle’s resemblance to her father. “Forgive me. I should not have burdened you with this.”

Her sister reached to take Emilie’s hand. “I am honored that you shared your secret.” Her gaze met Emilie’s then her eyes widened. “It is a secret? Our father does not know?”

“Only you and those aboard the
Cormorant
know.”

“The
Cormorant
?”
 

“The second vessel upon which I was held captive.” Another feeble attempt at laughter failed more miserably than the first. “That would be after the sinking of the
Sunday Service
and my capture by the pirate Thomas Hawkins of the
Hawk’s Remedy
. He’s the one who caused the loss of the money Papa gave me for the school.”

“Jean Gayarre gave you money for the school but it was lost to a pirate?” Isabelle shook her head and pushed an errant curl—the lone similarity that marked them as sisters—from her face. “Perhaps you should start at the beginning.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Emilie said. “It’s all too much.”

“Then start at the end and work backward.”

“Backward?” Emilie made to protest, but Isabelle interrupted.

“Just try it,” she said.

“I am here with my sister. Half-sister,” she corrected.

Isabelle touched Emilie’s sleeve. “I take objection. I’ve never felt fully sister to anyone until you, Emilie. Do not deny me this by qualifying it with technicalities.”

Emilie smiled. “Then I shall begin again. I am here with my sister, Isabelle, after arriving from Havana.” At Isabelle’s nod, she continued. “Where I was present at a trial conducted by the local authorities for the purpose of discerning the guilt of Thomas Hawkins, captain of the
Hawk’s Remedy
and a known pirate. I was the lone witness against him, and I testified to his sinking of the
Sunday Service
and his attack on the
Cormorant
.”

She paused and looked past the abandoned cottage, to the glittering ocean and the horizon beyond. The threat of foul weather had not touched the horizon on this side of the island. Rather, several fat white clouds hung in the sky, fresh cotton suspended from a canopy of robin’s egg blue.

The same color of the canopy she had looked up into every night as a child in New Orleans. Odd that even now as she gazed into the blue, she wished for a mother to ease her aches and kiss away her troubles.

“Emilie?”

Isabelle’s voice brought an end to her musings. “Thomas Hawkins had been taken captive in a battle. As had I.”
 

“A battle?” Isabelle sucked in an audible breath. “Oh, Emmy, were you harmed?”

“This backwards story begs continuing,” Emilie said, “and then the questions can be answered.”

“Of course.” The words floated toward her as a whisper on the sea air.

“The battle raged over something, though I am not certain whether it was me or just an incident of pirating. Whatever the case, I was used as barter for two bags of gold—not the same gold Papa gave me, for that had already been forcefully removed from my person—though the transaction was never completed. Before my time on the
Cormorant
, I was aboard Captain Hawkins’s vessel
Hawk’s Remedy
where it was not gold but my virtue that the pirate demanded.”
 

Emilie let the words hang between them for a moment. “He did not receive it, but I still bear the bruises from his attempt.”

“I’m so sorry,” Isabelle said. “Was he found guilty of his crimes?”

“He was.” A gull soared overhead, then dipped toward the ocean only to climb and soar again. “I elected not to stay and witness his execution, though likely it has happened by now.”
 

“Justice demanded to be served, though it is unfortunate that you had to participate in his trial.” She drew her knees to her chest and settled her skirt around her feet. “Emilie, surely you do not believe that you’re the reason this Captain Hawkins is dead.”

“Hawkins?” How easily she could allow Isabelle her belief and end this conversation. “No,” she finally said, “though I certainly did my part to seal his fate.”

“But what of this man you. . .”

“Killed?” Emilie buried her head in her hands. “That would be a fellow named Benning. His crew called him the Benning, which I thought odd. He purchased me for the bags of gold, then promptly defaulted on the transaction in order to capture Hawkins and turn him over to the authorities in Havana.” Her voice faltered as the memory pressed in. “Or rather,” she said with difficulty as the tears threatened, “a member of his crew saw to the pirate’s delivery to the authorities. You see, by then I’d shot the Benning. With his own pistol.”

Isabelle inched closer to take Emilie into her arms. “Oh, Emmy, you’re a good person. There has to be a reasonable explanation for this.”

“No.” Emilie pulled away to rise, swiping at the tears scalding her cheeks. “There is no reasonable explanation. He gave me the pistol and told me to use it should any man breach the sanctity of the cabin where I slept.”

Her sister stood and swiped at the grass clinging to her skirt. “Then how did you come to shoot him?”

“I awoke to a man standing in the cabin. I found the pistol and pulled the trigger.” She shrugged. “A simple explanation, yet that’s exactly what happened.”

“But why was he in the cabin? Do you think he meant you harm?”

Words caught in her throat and stuck there until she finally managed to say, “I’ll never know.”

“The reason doesn’t matter so much as what you do with the guilt. It will ruin you if you let it.” She paused. “So will the anger.”

“I believe you.” Emilie took a shuddering breath. “I just don’t
know how.”

An eternity passed as Emilie stood staring at the clouds skittering off beyond the horizon. In their place came the darkening skies that Isabelle had pointed out back on the docks.

The wind turned fresh and whipped around them, its scent ripe with rain.
 

Isabelle tugged on Emilie’s sleeve. “We should go. It’ll do neither of us any good to be caught in the downpour that’s surely coming.”
 

Emilie followed her sister’s lead and turned to retrace her steps to the town. Then came a moment when the burden on her shoulders would not let her take another step toward a place where people expected her to act like the old Emilie.
 

An outcropping beckoned, and she sat. “Izzy?” she called to Isabelle’s retreating back. “Go on without me.”

Her sister stopped and turned around, hands on her hips. “I refuse.”

The darkening sky mirrored Emilie’s mood. “I need to be alone.”

Isabelle came and sat beside her. “Then we will be alone together. And when you’re ready, I’ll walk you home.”

Resting her elbows on her knees, Emilie studied the toes of her borrowed shoes. Unburdening seemed her only choice. “I should never have gone to New Orleans. Looks what’s come of my greed.”

“Greed?” Isabelle met her stare. “You went at the request of our father. How is that greed?”

“I went with the hope that I could coerce him into offering up some of his wealth to help build a school. I actually hoped to find I’d arrived too late. Are you shocked?”

“Em,” Isabelle said slowly, “if only you could know the thoughts I’ve had in regard to Jean Gayarre.”
 

Thunder rolled in the distance, but Isabelle never removed her attention from Emilie. “Emilie Gayarre,” Isabelle finally said, “I will absolutely not have you sitting on a rock one minute longer.”
 

Isabelle rose and reached for Emilie’s wrist, yanking her to her feet. For one so tiny, her sister was quite strong.
 

“And furthermore, where is the sister who led me out of slavery not once, but twice?”

“What do you mean?”

Thunder rolled around them as the wind picked up. “Walk with me, and I will tell you.” She waited until Emilie fell in beside her. “You found me and showed me who Jesus was and how He came to save my soul. Then, even when I thought it impossible, you made it possible to leave and have the life I now live.”

Emilie paused to smooth her hair from her face. “I fail to see how any of that reflects on what I’ve done.”

“It reflects on who you are.” She stepped around a patch of soft grass, then waited for Emilie to do the same. “And who you are right now is the teacher that the children of Fairweather Key have been missing terribly.”

“How can I teach them, Izzy? I’m not the example they need. Nor, for that matter, am I qualified by virtue of my birth.”

“Expecting perfection, are you? And on top of that, breaking your promise not to speak of our birth already?” Isabelle’s green eyes flashed fire. “Well, Emilie Gayarre, for once it is not going to happen. None of us can live up to that standard forever, not even you.” She paused. “I’m terribly sorry for what happened to you. I can’t imagine how horrible it was, and I know it must have been even more difficult to talk about it. However, if you let this experience immobilize you, then the devil has won, and those who love you have lost. Is that what you want?”

Emilie thought a moment, then squared her shoulders and swiped at her eyes as the first fat raindrop fell. “Really, Isabelle,” she said with the slightest grin, “must you keep me out in this weather? If we don’t blow away, we’ll surely be soaked.”

Chapter 19

June 12, 1836

Santa Lucida

Caleb’s world was filled with dark and murky passageways pierced by the occasional porthole that allowed only pale light to filter through the gloom. Without ceasing, Caleb wandered the unfamiliar halls, looking for the door that would lead him out of the maze.
 

Each time it seemed as though he might see the end, that a bright light beckoned, he would stumble forward, only to have the door shut. Close inspection would reveal there had, indeed, been no door at all.

Frustration mounted, as did the heat inside the tiny corridors. Caleb tore at his clothes and tried in vain to find relief. Then, when he felt he could stand it no more, the warmth would turn to bitter cold, and he could do nothing but halt his search and shiver, only to have the heat once again return.

This cycle of bright and dark, cold and hot carried on without ceasing until Caleb could go no further. Then the light found him, and he lay in its circle, finally comfortable.

* * *