Into His Arms (3 page)

Jonathan interrupted. “When it became clear that our tobacco farms would never be successful on Cigatoo, we stayed in the Caribbean until we could find passage to New England.” He paused, crossing his arms. Disgust marked his austere features. “While we were there, Elizabeth took up with a Spaniard who owned a sugar plantation on the island of Jamaica.”

Taking a step toward him, Naomi replied. “Oh, Jonathan, you make it sound so sordid. She fell in love with him. She married him. She did not ‘take up’ with him.”

His face did not soften. “She became a Catholic.”

“His church would not marry them otherwise.”

“And what is his faith to him that he could cast it aside when the island changed hands?”

“Wait!” Faith cried. “Scripture tells us that we must judge not, lest we be judged. Perhaps it is not our place to condemn—my aunt.” How strange that sounded to her, an aunt!

“Nay, Faith, you are grasping at straws. I will not send my daughter half the world away to be cared for by an idolatress!”

Naomi interrupted. “It is as I told you, she is Anglican.”

“Fine, then a woman who mistakes a political faction for a religion!”

Faith barely heard her father’s objections as her whole mind wrapped itself around this one hope. “Mother, do you really think she would have me?” To ease her father’s worries she added, “Perhaps I could find a suitable husband there. There are still Puritans in the Caribbean.”

“Enough! I am the master of this house, and I forbid it! When we left the Caribbean we agreed that Elizabeth’s name would ne’er be spoken in this new land. Naomi, it was foolish of you to have broken that silence. We will put an end to this discussion right now. God willing, the morning will put a fresh face on this matter. For now, let it rest!” Silence followed her father’s outburst, and after a pointed look at the two women, he stormed out the door in the direction of the joinery.

Naomi went to the kitchen to quietly cut onions for the stew pot while Faith punched down her bread dough with more force than usual. She divided it and placed each portion in its own pan.

“Perhaps I should not have offered false hope,” her mother said at last.

In a small voice, through a tight throat, Faith whispered, “Will you speak with him tonight?”

Naomi sighed. “Aye, I’ll speak with him.”

Afternoon faded into evening, and the males of the Cooper family left the joinery. Seven-year-old David and twelve-year-old Isaiah, both towheads, playfully splashed each other at the pump outside as they washed away the day’s sweat and sawdust. Naomi clapped her hands and firmly reminded them that the spring evening was too chill for such play. They traipsed in noisily behind Faith’s twin brother, Noah. With a happy grin, Noah accepted a small pail of stew and half a loaf of bread to take home to his wife, who was heavy with their first child. His hands full, he shook a stray lock of blond hair from his face.

“I thought I’d deliver that sideboard tomorrow, father, if you can spare me from the joinery.”

Faith’s spirits lifted. “Are you bound for Boston, then? May I go with you?” Boston was always exciting, and it would be a pleasant diversion from her woes.

“I’d welcome the company,” he replied. “The hours get long when I’m riding alone.”

“Aye, that’s a fine idea,” Jonathan agreed. He exchanged a quick glance with his wife that said they had much to discuss while Faith was gone.

Noah left, taking his mother’s food and his sister’s promise to be ready to go early the next day. At dinner, David and Isaiah were subdued. The tension between their sister and parents was palpable, and in a home where discord was most uncommon, it dampened their usual boisterous natures. The meal was a quiet one, punctuated by the clatter of dishes and the occasional strained cough.

That night, Faith blew out the candle next to her bed and stared up at the pitch-black ceiling. “Dear God,” she prayed in a fervent whisper, “grant me deliverance, some means of escaping this terrible fate. I beg you, I will try harder, do anything! Please, show me the way!”

*

In the keeping room, Naomi knelt by the waning fire, glad that her husband and children had gone upstairs and that she had a few moments to herself. Like her daughter in the room above her, she spoke her heart in her prayers.

“Dear Father in Heaven, for many years now my church and my family have been blessings beyond measure. I am deeply and profoundly grateful. But now, my two greatest blessings are entirely at odds. We need Your guidance! I sacrificed my sister for You, once. I beg of You, Holy Father, do not take my daughter as well.”

Knowing that God saw into her heart, she made no attempt to stop her tears. “Faith has been foundering for a while, I have sensed it. And yet, she seeks only to please us and to obey You. This test is too much, and I fear that we will lose her! In the darkest moments, I fear that You will lose her, as well. It is not merely her comfort I look to. It is her soul.

“And Jonathan’s, too,” she whispered, uncertainly. “I have never seen him so torn. How can he choose between You and his child’s happiness?

“I know it is not
my
will that must be done, but
Thy
will. I have no doubt that you have a plan for my girl, just as you did for me. But I cannot hide from You my dearest hope that Owen Williams is not a part of it, that you will send her another, even as you sent me my Jonathan. But if he is—if she must endure this trial—help her to keep her faith. Hold her, keep her, protect her in Your love. Amen.”

Chapter 3

Rambling buildings of brick and wood surrounded Boston Harbor, a veritable forest of masts and tightly furled sails. The timbers stood tall against the pale gray sky and deep greenish gray of the ocean. Mammoth ships rocked and creaked in the lapping waves. The smell of salty sea air mingled with fish, though occasionally a faint hint of spices would waft through, a ribbon of tangy sweetness amid the earthier scents.

Faith loved coming to town and the port, where the wide world beyond their little village was displayed in wares brought by the ships and the men who sailed them. People came and went around her in the chilly spring air, and it was easy to believe Noah when he told her that Boston had nearly two thousand people living in it!

She was always careful to keep her eyes modestly downcast, but she walked among them listening to their foreign tongues. Sea captains and other men of importance wore elegant coats and frothy lace, far more adornment than the sumptuary regulations of most Puritan villages permitted. Faith dreamed of England, where everyone was so refined. The ships now in Boston Harbor would carry timber, sugar, and all manner of products from the New World up the Thames to London. She tried to envision that faraway city, one that she knew dwarfed the port she currently explored. Mayhap some of those things would find their way to the king. It seemed to her that London was exactly the opposite of her village. It was a city full of changes and chances...and choices.

For a bare moment, she allowed herself to imagine such a life. She would open her wardrobe and ask herself, “Shall I wear this pink gown today or perhaps this lovely yellow one?” She would walk among the shops and dare to choose some exotic scent from the Far East to dab behind each ear. And gentlemen would court her. She would choose a man she could love, not merely accept a man who was suitable. A dark cloud smothered her lovely fantasy. It seemed that she was not to be allowed any choice at all in her husband.

Noah brought with him a beautifully wrought sideboard that had been commissioned by a shipmaster’s wife, and while Faith strolled through the market outside of the Boston Town House, he delivered the piece. She had promised her mother that she would pick up sugar and salt, but as she made her way through the crowd, she found herself distracted by a bolt of peacock blue silk. Glancing guiltily to either side, she reached out to finger the luxurious fabric.

*

It was just at that moment that Captain Geoffrey Hampton spied the pretty little Puritan maid who wistfully caressed his merchandise. He tucked his hat beneath his claret velvet-clad arm, revealing a head of thick, light brown hair.

What a shame, he thought. He knew women well enough to know they had a weakness for lovely things, and here this one was, primly ensconced in a plain russet wool skirt and bodice and modest linen collar.

“Captain Hampton?”

The seaman tore his eyes from the girl to look impatiently at the merchant he had been trading with. “Aye, forgive me,” Geoff replied. “I lost my concentration for a moment.”

The merchant wore somber clothes and a wide collar proclaimed him a member of the same religious sect as the woman. Shaking his head, he looked at her. “Aye, I see what you mean. I cannot fathom what her family is thinking to allow her on the docks unescorted. You there!” he called to her. “I doubt me that is on your shopping list!”

The girl looked up at him and flushed. Whether ‘twas guilt or anger, Geoff could not tell, and she fled before he could determine. He was sorely tempted to take the man to task for speaking so harshly to her, but he smelled money and a sizeable sale.

“I must say,” the merchant said, resuming their previous conversation, “I didn’t expect to see you here, what with so much gold for the taking in Panama. Surely you were there for the raid last winter?”

His question did nothing to soothe Geoff’s irritation. “Aye, so I was. But the Spaniards had taken most of the treasure from Panama City in earlier ships. As for what was left—Captain Henry Morgan saw to the loading of it, and most of the gold went with him and his cronies. We were fortunate to have been left our vessel. As fate would have it, we encountered a small Spanish merchant ship in the Windward Passage between Cuba and Hispaniola.”

“The source of this fine merchandise?” His companion gestured broadly at the array of items that surrounded them—casks of rum, bolts of silk, spices, costly trinkets that had once graced fair Spanish women.

Geoff smiled humorlessly. “He was outnumbered four to one when we boarded, so the captain was most generous with us.”

“‘Tis sure the Spaniards will be cursing your names for years to come.”

“Aye, I suppose so. For now they’ll be busy enough rebuilding Panama City. The entire place is naught but ashes now.”

The merchant chuckled. “Well, however you may think of Captain Morgan, the king is sure to love him. More gold for England’s coffers, less for Spain’s. My wife insists that buying from privateers is the same as stealing. By my reckoning, you’re God’s way of diverting funds from the Catholic Church, corrupt old whore that she is.”

“Well, it would be a lie if I said that I cared about the politics of it,” Geoff replied. Somehow he doubted that the merchant cared much about the politics or religion either. They were convenient excuses for profiting from plunder. Mayhap Geoff was little better than a pirate, but at least he was honest about it. “Still, Morgan could never have done it alone. Show a brave Englishman your favor and take some of this off my hands.”

He spent the morning haggling with merchants and giving the earnings over to Giles Courtney, the ship’s quartermaster, to be divided up later. They sailed on the morrow, and he intended to enjoy the afternoon and evening. Boston lacked the vast array of entertainment available in Port Royal, Jamaica, but there was sure to be a willing wench somewhere.

In the back of his mind he could not rid himself of the merchant’s hypocrisy or the maid’s blush at having been chastised for so little a sin as admiring a bolt of silk. Hell of a curse, that, to live in Massachusetts. On a lark, he held back one item, and he tucked it beneath his arm as he strolled, his brown eyes with their golden flecks scanning the crowd.

*

Beyond his view, Faith wended her way through the throng, listening to blends of Dutch, English, and a bit of Portuguese, when a heavy Cockney accent caught her attention.

“Aye, it’s been a profi’able journey, but I’m fer gettin’ back to Port Royal. The rum’s cheap and the wenches willin’. The fair ship
Destiny
sails at dawn, and I’ll be ‘ome with gold in me pockets.”

“Is yer cap’n all they say?” his compatriot asked.

“Aye, fair to a fault, but ‘e fights lik the very divil. Le’ me say, it’s glad I am to be on ‘is side. I’d not like t’meet ‘im at the other end of ‘is cutlass.”

Faith froze and fought to stem the impulsive thoughts that flooded her rebellious mind. A ship bound for Jamaica that sailed on the morrow! She had asked God for deliverance—was this it? Nay, to follow such a mad path was to disobey her parents and her church! She would have to travel half a world away to a woman she hadn’t even known existed until yesterday! Mayhap she would only be turned away, stranded in a foreign land.

Sugar and salt. She was here to buy sugar and salt, not to find passage to Jamaica. Besides, she had no coin to pay her way. And he said the captain fought like the devil. What manner of man was this? She could hardly place her trust in the stranger she had heard the man with the Cockney accent describe.

Spices and seasonings abounded among the street hawkers, and when she was quite certain she had found the thriftiest bargain for the items she needed, she took out the coin to pay for them. The seller had a fresh shipment of cinnamon, as well, and Faith was reminded that she had used nearly the last of theirs on gingerbread the previous day, so she added it to her purchase. She could see her family’s wagon from the street stall, and since Noah was nowhere in sight, she decided to walk a little longer.

Destiny
. The name of the ship rang in her head like a bell, and again came the niggling question whether this was the answer to her prayer. She told herself that she simply wanted a breath of sea air when she wandered out onto the wharf, not leaving until she found the small, elegant brigantine. The sails of the ship’s two masts were furled, but in her mind, Faith could see them filled with wind out upon the high seas.

*

Perhaps half an hour later, Faith placed her bags into the wagon. She did not notice the golden-eyed sea captain who stared at her through a tavern window. He had nearly given up looking for her, but now, he rose and gulped the last of his rum. Tossing a coin to the serving wench, he strode to the door.