For Her Love (2 page)

Her whole world was spinning brutally out of control.

“Naaay,” the little girl wailed softly.

“God damn it! This is the last that will ever be spoken of this!” Edmund shouted, and Grace flinched. Her father beat slaves when they made him angry. He whipped them. He had cut out Matu’s tongue! “This is my plantation, and it will pass to my descendants. Grace will marry a White, as will her children. In time, this will all be a meaningless splotch somewhere in family history.”

A meaningless splotch, Grace thought. I am a meaningless splotch. A meaningless,
black
splotch.

“Jacques,” Edmund said tightly, “you will leave on the morrow or so help me God, I
will
kill you.”

Jacques looked at his sister, who rolled her eyes and gestured to the door. “Go for now,” she said. “We will talk again when my husband regains his senses.”

Grace’s uncle shot Edmund a murderous look, but he complied.

No wait, Grace thought, Jacques was not her uncle after all. Somehow, there was some comfort in that. He was no family of hers. Or was he? Were Iolanthe and her mother sisters if they shared the same father? Could a white woman and a black woman be sisters? Nothing made sense any more.

Edmund turned to his wife, taking back the candle he had handed to her earlier. “Your brother will go back to Saint-Domingue, and things will return to normal. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Grace is
our
child. I have never asked you to love or care for her, Iolanthe, and I have never placed her needs or desires before yours. Unless you can tolerate my presence back in your bed long enough to give me another heir, you
will
abide by this.”

Iolanthe gave him a haughty look. “I will write to my father on the morrow,” she said.

“You do that. He will undoubtedly insist that I sell Grace, but he will just as undoubtedly insist that you resume your wifely duties. He understands the need for heirs as much as I.”

Iolanthe drew her hand back and let it fly with all her might against Edmund’s cheek. He hardly flinched. “That, my darling,” he said, his voice laced with irony, “is the only mark you’ve hit tonight.”

The enraged woman stormed out, and Edmund turned to his child. Matu was frantically petting her, as if trying to smooth the tight curls that hinted at the girl’s heritage.

“She’s so light, isn’t she, Matu?” he said, reaching down to pat her rich, golden brown hair himself. “My little golden girl.”

A little girl made of honey, like you. You would fetch the highest price.

“If—Iolanthe gave you a baby, would you sell me, Father?” Grace asked, her voice small and fragile.

Edmund smiled at her. “There’s little chance of her doing that, poppet. No one’s going to sell you.”

Poppet. Grace had a poppet. A soft rag doll that Matu had made for her when she was tiny. A plaything.

His face sobered again. “What—what has he done to you? You must tell me all.”

Grace hid her face against Matu’s nearly flat chest. “I cannot.”

Edmund sighed. “Did he put anything between your legs?”

Grace’s answer was muffled against her nurse.

“What?” her father pressed. Matu waved her fingers in the air. “His fingers?” Edmund asked. Grace nodded. “Examine her,” Edmund commanded Matu. “So help me, if he’s breached her, he’s a dead man.”

Once Edmund left, Matu soothed Grace, calmed her wordlessly. Then she performed the required examination and gave the child a reassuring smile.

“Is it all right?” Grace asked, not entirely sure what she was asking. She didn’t know what Matu was looking for. Perhaps to see that she was not torn in some way. Jacques had spoken of “breaking her.”

Matu nodded and pulled Grace back into her own small lap, rocking her for an hour or more until Grace could fall asleep. Once again, Matu was there to ward off the monsters, to sacrifice herself, if need be, for Grace’s safety.

1674

“Well, Giles, she’s in perfect order and all yours,” Geoffrey Hampton said, clapping his oldest friend on the shoulder.

Giles Courtney grinned at him. “Aye. She’s a beauty, Geoff. A fair addition. Do we have a fleet now, d’you think?”

Geoff laughed and turned to his wife, who was holding their son and standing at the rail of the new ship, just purchased by Courtney and Hampton Shipping. “What think you, Faith? Do two ships a fleet make?”

“Well, you’ve two fleet ships,” she conceded. “That’s what matters most.” The tow-headed boy in her arms struggled to be put down. He most resembled his mother, with his pale blonde hair, but it might yet darken to his father’s sun-streaked brown.

Giles’s gray eyes swept the deck of the first ship that would be entirely his to command. Having been Geoff’s first mate for nigh onto a decade, he should have felt a greater sense of pride and accomplishment. But he had just reached his thirtieth year, and while ‘twas all well and good to be captain of a fine ship like
Reliance
, surely there was more to life. Thirty, and he had yet to make any lasting mark upon this world.

Faith carried little Jonathan over to Giles and handed the boy to his godfather. “Isn’t Uncle Giles a fine figure of a commander?” she asked the child. Jonathan responded by reaching behind Giles’s neck and tugging upon the neat, dark-brown queue of hair that hung there.

Giles laughed. “I don’t think he finds me overly imposing.”

Faith brushed the shoulders of Giles’s deep blue jacket with gold trim. “I daresay your men will quail to displease you.”

Quail? Giles doubted it. Men quailed before Geoff. Geoff was the intimidating one, Giles the reliable one. It had always been so. How it had stung when Geoff had rushed into the office and said, “I’ve found the very ship meant for you, Giles.
Reliance
. Could ever a name be more perfect?”

Well, ‘twasn’t as though he were still privateering. He and Geoff had left that life behind two years past. He was a merchant captain, and reliability was a fine trait in such a profession. Besides, he’d daresay he could still hold his own in any fight. How many times had he defended Geoff’s back when the other man had taken wild risks in battle? And they were both still here to tell the tales!

Geoff’s son smiled into Giles’s face. The lad smelled of fresh sea air and a hint of cinnamon and sugar. How was it that Geoff’s life had settled down so nicely while Giles’s life seemed to keep sweeping by with no one truly at the helm? Mayhap the ship was a start. Mayhap a command was the very thing he needed, if not exactly what he wanted.

“So,” Giles said, shaking off his brooding mood, “I’m for Welbourne Plantation on the morrow?”

“Aye,” Geoff answered, his own disposition sobering.

Faith stepped in and reclaimed her child. “We’re off to do some shopping,” she said. “It’s been some weeks since we’ve visited the docks of Port Royal.”

Geoff and Faith lived outside the city now, and Giles was more likely to visit them than they were to come to his apartment in the Caribbean’s “wickedest city on earth.” Giles thought back to the first time Faith had walked these streets alone. She was closer to him than his own sisters in London, and he had been so proud of her. Now, she strolled off into the throngs of criminals and prostitutes with an air of easy confidence. Nonetheless, Geoff motioned to a crewman to follow her, and the man immediately complied. Never mind that he was Giles’s man, not Geoff’s. Giles’s jaw tensed, but he said nothing. Surely his friend had not intended to usurp Giles’s authority; he was simply a natural commander. Besides, Giles was only too glad to have one of his crew see to Faith and Jonathan’s safety.

“I received a message from Welbourne this morn,” Geoff said, and Giles looked back to his friend. “He’s hoping you’ll take two dozen or so slaves with you to Virginia when you make the other delivery.”

Giles made a small sound of distaste in his throat. “We’ve told him our policy there,” he replied.

“Aye. He thought such a small number might persuade us to bend the rules.”

Giles looked at Geoff in disbelief. “Are you asking me to?”

“Nay, not at all. Only, ‘tis your ship, Giles. You make the decisions. It seemed only fair to give you the option. ‘Tis getting harder and harder to hold to the policy these days. We’ve lost a fair number of customers for it.”

“Aye, well, we made that policy together, Geoff, and I feel no different now than I did before. I’ll not traffic in human flesh. We’ve sins enough to account for in all our years privateering.”

Geoff rolled his eyes. Two years of marriage to a former Puritan had done nothing to soften his cynicism toward the idea of eternal retribution. “Well,” he said, “I’ll not deny, the idea leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Good then. You’ll get there ere we can send a messenger. Just explain our philosophy regarding slaves. In for a penny, in for a pound.”

Giles nodded. “And we’ll not be taking a pound of anyone’s flesh, color be damned.”

The decision was an easy one for Giles. What was becoming increasingly more difficult for him was the inescapable knowledge that merely refusing to transport slaves was not enough. They were certainly willing to ship sugar, rum, tobacco, all products of slave labor, and in that sense, aided the despicable practice. Still, one couldn’t live in the Caribbean and escape it.

He spent the night on ship, gazing about him at the captain’s cabin. The port was large and square, made of heavy glass that let in more light than view. The bunk, covered by a serviceable, russet, woolen blanket, was large enough to accommodate a wife, should he ever find one. The furnishings, a desk and several oak cabinets, had been well maintained and glowed with a rich golden hue.

The next morning, he rose at dawn and set his quarters to rights. All charts were neatly stored, the bed crisply made. Geoff had often teased him, said that he would have been a natural in the navy. The thought made Giles grin. He’d no problem following Geoff’s commands, for they were given by a friend in mutual respect. But Lord, he’d chafed at orders given by other captains he’d served. Still, when he glanced around the impeccably tidy space, it struck him as somehow empty. There was no sense of the man who occupied the space.

He forced the feeling aside. A place for everything and everything in its place, like keeping his appearance neat and crisp, were not merely military virtues. If one couldn’t command respect through intimidation, like Geoff, one gained it through efficiency and competence. Giles carefully combed his hair back and tied it, tucked in the hem of his loose-fitting shirt, and gave the toes of his boots a cursory buffing. Already, he could hear footfalls on the deck above. The day wasn’t waiting for him.

Welbourne Plantation was but a few hours’ sailing. The real voyage wouldn’t start until they had loaded up Edmund Welbourne’s sugar, molasses, rum, almonds, and other goods into
Reliance’s
hold and set sail for Virginia, then on to Boston. Once there, he would empty his hold and refill it with lumber and finished goods from New England to be sold upon his return home. The venture should take two months or a bit more.

The day was fair, the breeze warm, and the sea breathtakingly blue. Giles had chosen his own crew and was well pleased. The mood on deck was calm but productive. Above him, a vast expanse of canvas stretched and bowed.

His
. He searched for some sense of fulfillment in that thought.

Around him, the men were relaxed, at ease. He had a new lad on board, and one of the older sailors sat with him on a pile of rope, teaching him to make knots. The helmsman had nothing more taxing to do than follow the lush, green shore of the island. A man stood in the crow’s nest, keeping an eye out for dangers and obstacles, but they all knew this stretch well, so there was little chance he would see anything of concern. It was a fine start for Giles’s first command.

Welbourne Plantation had its own small bay, an easy place to drop anchor and row to shore over smooth, blue waters. There was a wooden dock, and behind that a lawn that stretched to the front of a two-story, Tudor style house. The farm was built onto the side of a hill so that, even from the ship, Giles saw the network of buildings behind the main house. There was the kitchen, the cook’s house, a carriage house, and of course, the sugar mill and sugar house. A glance through the spyglass showed that the plantation’s slaves were very busy operating the huge, heavy sugar press and boiling enormous vats of crushed cane. Then, thick vegetation took over the property—banana and almond trees for the Whites, fields of cassava and corn for the Negroes, all manner of indigenous plants and trees. The grounds continued up the hillside to the cane fields, where a wide swath had been burned and slaves moved in and out, cutting and gathering sugar cane.

Edmund Welbourne waved from the dock. He was as Giles remembered him, a short man with a paunch and yellow-blond hair that shone in the sun. Around him, twenty or more slaves rose from where they had sprawled on the ground, preparing to help load the vast number of crates stacked all around them. Between the boats
Reliance
carried and two others belonging to Welbourne, it would be an afternoon of hard work, but it should go smoothly. Giles and his first mate disembarked from their rowboat and joined the planter and his men.

“Captain Courtney,” Edmund said, extending his hand. “Good to see you again.”

Captain.
He would have to get used to that. Giles took the proffered hand. “The pleasure is mine. You’ve a goodly number of men here. We should be back underway in no time.” He wondered when it would be best to explain that he would not be transporting those men anywhere.

“No rush,” Edmund replied. “My daughter is seeing to refreshments. I knew you’d want to oversee this process, but no sense sweating over it ourselves. Your man there can supervise. Did you receive my message?”

Giles opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Over Edmund’s shoulder, an exquisite woman of pure gold moved with fluid grace across the manicured lawn. She wore a gown of muted green that offset flawless, honey-colored skin. Her hair was pulled off of her neck, but ‘twas a mass of golden ringlets that defied careful styling. As she drew closer, he felt himself pinned by a pair of intelligent, green eyes.