Silver Moon (2 page)

Chapter Two

The echo of horses’ hooves was the only sound heard on the cobblestone street of the small waterfront village, in that quiet hour between sleep and wakefulness. The moon was but a faint white dimple in the heaven, lighting nothing along Torquay’s dark murky streets.

The two riders urged their horses on, angling toward a rickety dock and the small boat awaiting them.

The lead rider, a burly man with a grizzled gray beard, never let his glance remain fixed upon any object for more than a heartbeat as his deep-set eyes roamed every crevice of the dangerous waterfront. When he was satisfied there were no dark shapes waiting to pounce on them, he raised his arm, signaling his companion to a halt.

The companion, covered by the night and a dark, hooded cape, pulled back on the reins of her sleek bay gelding. At the very edge of the dock, the first rider dismounted and went to the second. Moving quickly, he helped the hooded figure down.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Elyse, her face concealed within the hood, nodded, but Amos McClintock knew better. They had been riding hard for six long hours.

“Just a little while longer,” he said. Then he stiffened when the sound of more hoof beats filled the air. “Damn! I had hoped they would not be after us so quickly. We must be gone, now!” Saying that, he led the hooded figure to the edge of the dock and the waiting boat. “Wake up!” he snarled at the two sleeping figures within the boat’s confines.

The men sat up quickly, their hands going to the dirks concealed at their waists. Recognizing the bearded man, they stood as Amos handed down his companion.

When Amos cast off the single rope that bound them to the dock, the sound of running horses came closer.

“Faster!” he ordered.

Three minutes later the boat was a hundred yards from the dock, the two men rowing hard toward the dark form of the bobbing ship another five hundred yards distant.

“Ye be well rid of this place,” Amos commented as he looked back at the dock and the half dozen forms standing on its edge.

Letting the hood fall, Elyse, with a tired gesture, nodded and looked back at the dock. “And all England, as well.” Her head spun dizzily, but she fought her exhaustion and won.

“Aye lass, your words ring true.”

Elyse turned back to Amos, a soft smile on her face. “I will never be able to thank you enough,” she told him, battling still another wave of tiredness. Elyse had not slept more than three hours in the past two days—anticipation and fear had made rest impossible.

“There be no thanks needed. I did what was necessary, for you and for the memory of your father.” As he said those words, his face twisted with pain. A half heartbeat later, Elyse heard the echo that followed the musket ball.

Seeing the flash of pain on his face, Elyse went to him, heedless of the way the boat rocked against the current. “Amos, what?” she asked.

“Those damn fools nicked me. I’ll be fine,” he assured her in a gruff voice.

Elyse was not convinced. Casting away her exhaustion, she reached out to his shoulders and explored downward. Her breath hissed when her fingers touched the sticky spread of blood. “Nicked? Amos, you’ve been badly shot,” she whispered, trying to penetrate the darkness and see the extent of the wound.

“’Tisn’t the first time some lead leech has tried to bleed me.”

Elyse shook her head, her heart beating much too fast. She had been able to tell by the position of the wound that it was very serious, indeed. How could he still be standing? 

The small boat finally reached the bobbing merchantman, Brittania. With the aid of the two seamen, Elyse helped Amos McClintock up the rope ladder and onto the deck of the sloop.

They stepped onto the wooden planking and a young man, concern etched across his features, came quickly to them. “Father?” His eyes went from Amos to Elyse. “What happened?”

“Those damn fools got off a lucky shot. Near missed me, but. . .” Then Amos shook his head slowly. “William, see to Mistress Louden… Damn lucky fools,” he swore as his hand pressed just beneath his collarbone. “It’s nothing,” Amos said, his voice weaker this time. “I just need some rest. See to Mistress Louden, Will.”

“Aye, Father,” Will replied, motioning to several men to help his father to the captain’s cabin. Before turning to Elyse, he looked at the first mate and nodded his head. “This way, Mistress,” he said, pointing toward his father’s receding back.

While they walked silently to the cabin, life erupted all around them as the crew prepared to lift anchor and leave their mooring.

Inside, Elyse turned to Will McClintock. “I must go to your father. I must help him!” she pleaded, looking into his deep brown eyes.

“Let my men look at him first. There is one who has had much experience.”

“He…he will be all right?” she asked, catching her lower lip between her teeth.

“Father?” Will forced smile onto his lips. “It would take more than a lucky ball to stop Amos McClintock! Please, Mistress Louden, you must be exhausted from your ride. Rest. I’ll take you to Father very soon.”

A moment later Elyse was alone in the cabin, sitting on the bed, her eyes closing. Sleep tried to steal her away, but she refused to give in to its seductive call; instead, she stood and strode out of the cabin, remembering everything that had happened this night.

When they’d made their escape from Chatsworth Hall, she’d hoped there would be no chase given, but Amos told her on the way to Torquay that they would not let her go willingly, not after what he had witnessed this night.

When she tried to tell him about the past years, he stopped her. “You can tell me the story later, on the ship. We need all our concentration for this ride!”

Amos was right. Her uncle and his men had followed them. It was they, who shot Amos. She knew it as surely as she knew her name.

“I will pay you back for this,” she promised aloud.

Elyse stopped at the port rail and looked out at the horizon. The leading edge of the sun was now rising above the horizon, and her breath caught at the magnificence of its golden rays.

“I’m free, Father. I’m coming home,” she whispered, her eyes gazing heavenward.

Five days later, Elyse stood at the same port rail where she had watched the dawn on the first day of her newfound freedom: this time she overcome by sadness.

Will was ten feet from her, his head bowed, his voice sad, and his words heavy in the air as he spoke the final prayers over his father’s white-shrouded body.

Six sailors then raised Amos McClintock’s body, and Will recited the Lord’s Prayer. In the middle of it, the sailors released Amos into the sea, which he had so loved.

Elyse watched the ghostly form slip into the depths of the green Atlantic, and as Amos disappeared beneath the surface, her throat constricted painfully.

The men left the port side of the ship, but Elyse stayed at the rail, looking into the ocean depths at the very spot where Amos’s body had entered the water, and said her own prayer for him. Tears fell unashamedly down her cheeks; her guilt at the part she’d played in his death grew overwhelming.

“Elyse,” Will called, stepping to her side.

She turned to him, her eyes awash. “I. . . I’m so sorry. If not for me, Amos would still—”

“Stop!” Will ordered her in a strong voice. “Father did what he believed was necessary for him to do.”

“Was it necessary for him to die?” Elyse turned back to look at the ocean.

“Who can say what was or wasn’t necessary with any certainty? Elyse, my father always believed that no man could choose the time of his death. All he could hope for was a good death, not a wasted one. Helping you was what he wanted to do. It made him feel young again, strong again.”

“But it was my fault! If I hadn’t been such a fool for all those years...”

Will looked at her for several moments. During the past five days, Elyse had rarely left his father’s side. She’d nursed him night and day, sleeping on a pallet on the cabin floor, refusing to be taken from him.

Whenever Will’s duties had allowed him to be with them, he sat with Elyse and his father. In those first few days, when Amos was still lucid, Elyse told them both the full story of her life with her guardians. He heard too, within her tones, the self-loathing she felt for allowing herself to be used by them without fighting back.

Nothing Amos could say made her feel unashamed; nothing Will tried to tell her seemed to help. Now, he thought, she would add his father’s death to the weight she already carried on her shapely shoulders.

“You were alone, without friends, without someone who could teach you about the way people really are. Elyse, you can’t do this to yourself. Father led a good life, a full life. He died without regrets. I beg you, do not deprecate what he did; it serves his memory poorly. Besides, do you think your father would have done any less if our situations were reversed?”

Still looking into the ocean, Elyse shook her head. “No one would have been so stupid as I. I spent years waiting for help, instead of doing something to help myself.”

“But you did do something! When you found the right opportunity to help yourself, you took it.”

“And your father died because I did.”

“No! If he had not helped you—if you had not asked for his help and he learned of your situation at another time—it would have hurt him far worse than merely dying. He would have known that he could have helped you but hadn’t…that he failed both himself and your father. Elyse,” Will said, his tone strong, “rarely have two men shared such a friendship. They loved each other in a way very few people ever could—they were closer than brothers. My father had to help you, for himself as much as for you!”

With his words echoing in her mind, Elyse took a deep breath and turned back to face Will. She tried to smile, but could not. “One day they will pay for what they’ve done,” she whispered, unable to hold back the tears that claimed her once again.

“You can count on that,” Will said, drawing her gently into his arms and letting her cry until her grief subsided into acceptance.

April 17, 1837

Elyse adjusted the bodice of her dress and looked at the results in the mirror. She wasn’t overly critical of herself, knowing it was the best she could do.

She had arrived aboard the Britannia with only the clothing she wore while escaping England, having left the small bag behind when they fled Devon. To make do on the seven-week voyage, she had altered several pairs of sailor pants, along with several tops. Today, she would wear the dress she had escaped in. Around her neck, on a thin golden chain, rested her father’s ring. It was her only piece of jewelry.

She wore her high riding boots, which would make the walk to her home easier than any slippers could. Her long hair fell freely to her waist, and although the heat was high, it bothered her not at all.

When Elyse had told Will she wanted to land in Bluefish Bay, the small inlet that was part of Devonairre’s property, he had argued that she should go into Montego Bay and hire a carriage to take her home, as befitted a lady of title. Elyse refused, saying she preferred to come home quietly. She needed to relearn her home before venturing out among people she no longer knew.

Rather than argue, he nodded his head in acceptance. Then he lifted a magnificent mahogany box and opened it.

“These were my father’s pistols. Your father gave them to him twenty years ago.” Saying that, he took out one pistol and handed it to her. “Keep this one as a remembrance of him.”

“I can’t. They were your father’s.”

“And yours, too. I have one. I believe Amos would have liked you to have the other.”

Elyse silently took the pistol marveling at the fine scrollwork on the wooden handle and the metal barrel.

“It’s loaded, be careful,” Will cautioned.

Elyse took a deep breath and lifted the pistol from the bed. She placed it in the bag that Will had given her, atop the single pair of pants and shirt that she’d decided to keep. She looked around the cabin that had been her home for the past weeks and steeled herself to leave its safety. A moment later, she was ready to face her new life.

Stepping outside her cabin, Elyse paused to let the powerful Caribbean sun strike her with all its might. Instead of backing away, she smiled. It had been a long time, sixteen unbearably long years, since she’d felt the island sun’s caress. Elyse let her gaze wander along the shore and then upward.

Her breath caught and her eyes misted when they swept across the hillside, before searching and finding what she wanted to see. The large white house seemed to call to her. Staring at it, she remembered it as she’d last seen it. “Devonairre,” she whispered.

Will stepped next to her. “The launch is ready.”

“It feels good to be home,” she said softly, looking out at the white sand beach and the trees that started a hundred feet behind it.

“I know,” Will replied, taking her elbow and leading her toward the rope ladder on the port side.

“We’ll be back from America in three or four months. If you need me, send for me,” he told her when they reached the rope ladder.

She paused, suddenly unable to make her voice work. “Thank you, Will. I…” she began, but could speak no more.

“I understand,” Will said. “What Father did was important for him. More so than even his life. Please remember that.”

“I will,” Elyse said as she forced her tears to stay within her.

“You’ll be all right?” Will asked. “I can still have my men go with you.”

“I’ll be all right; I’m home now.” Straightening her shoulders, she turned and started for the railing.

“Remember, if you need—” Will began, but Elyse cut him off.

“I shall,” she promised. Leaning forward, Elyse kissed his cheek. “Good-bye, Will. When you return, we will expect to see you at Devonairre.”

Will smiled gently as he helped Elyse step onto the rope ladder. He continued to watch her as the men rowed her to shore, and turned away only after Elyse waved to him one last time before disappearing into the trees.

“Sir,” the first mate called.

Will straightened his shoulders.

“Shall we set sail?”

Will nodded and then looked back at the woods. “Good-bye,” he whispered to the woman with whom he had fallen in love during the seven-week voyage. A woman he would always love, but could never have. Will knew Elyse Louden was not for him, and knowing so, he did not push himself upon her. Their destinies lay in different directions, but he would never forget her, and never love her any less.

The instant her feet touched the beach, everything in Elyse’s mind fled except for the feeling of being home again. The warm breeze washed over her, kissed her skin, and then continued on its way, sped by the Caribbean Sea. Her riding dress billowed about her waist, but she did not bother to smooth it down. She crossed the white sand, feeling its heat penetrate the soles of her boots.

She wanted to kick them off and run barefoot through the sand. Elyse stopped as a memory of the past broke free. She had been four, running along this very beach. Behind her, her father chased her, laughing and making growling noises.

The memory fled and Elyse took a deep breath before walking toward the trees, her legs guiding her without willful control.

She stopped at the edge of the trees. Before her was a wide stone path. Lining the path, royal palm trees swayed in the island breeze. This she remembered too although, as with all her memories, it had been vague until she actually saw it.

She started along the path, her breathing low and shallow; the bag in her hand all but forgotten while her eyes darted everywhere, seeing things she had not seen since childhood.

Insects called to each other, and birds flew through the leaves of a dozen varieties of trees. Red birches were thick along the path, dogwood and breadfruit trees in abundance everywhere.

The path gradually steepened, and as the trees thinned out, the flowers and bushes grew denser. Stopping, Elyse looked around again. In every direction cattails proliferated; their large, almost diamond-shaped leaves were emerald green and the fluffy coral tails growing upon them waved in the soft breeze.

The varied scents of the island assaulted her all at once. She drank them in, as she did the almost forgotten beauty surrounding her—the very things she had come near to giving up hope of ever seeing again. For Elyse Louden, time had stood still and given her a gift that few could ever have or appreciate.

Shaking herself free of her memories and thoughts, Elyse moved along the path toward her home. She paused when she reached a rise where the stone path leveled off for a short distance. There she turned to look at the land surrounding her.

Everywhere she looked, she gazed upon Devonairre’s property. For as far as she could see, the land belonged to her. She had been on Devonairre since her booted feet had touched the shore. She had walked through the wild, natural parts, and was now entering the area of the plantation responsible for both her wealth and the troubles in her life.

Several hundred yards away, several workers went into the field. A moment later, they disappeared into the high stalks of sugar cane. In the distance was a rising funnel of dark smoke, which came from the plant on the other side of Bluefish Bay.

She looked at the main house. Smiling, Elyse walked faster. “Home,” she said to herself, savoring the word as though it were the rarest of delicacies.

Ten minutes later, Elyse reached the graded drive that curved toward the main house. Instead of taking that, she walked past it and climbed yet another hill with white stone steps laid within the earth. At the center of the hill, which overlooked the ocean on one side and the main house on the other, was an area fenced with wrought iron, surrounding two granite stones that gleamed beneath the sun.

Walking to the center of the small cemetery, Elyse stopped in front of the stones. She gazed at them for several long seconds before kneeling on the ground.

On her left was her father’s grave; on the right was her mother’s. Elyse did not remember her mother at all, for she had died when Elyse was barely two years old. Yet she knew her mother had been a beautiful woman, and her father had loved her deeply.

“I’m home; Father, Mother, and I won’t leave again.” Elyse stayed by the two graves for a long time, her mind spinning under the fleetingly bare handful of memories of her parents. Then, with her eyes still dry, she stood and turned.

Before she could take a single step, a dark blur fluttered past her. She froze, her hand half raised in surprise. The dark blur slowed, and she realized it was a small bird. An instant later, the bird, its wings never quite still, perched on her outstretched hand.

Elyse gazed at the little bird. It had a long red beak, jade green breast, and almost black wings. Doctor Bird. The island name for the little hummingbird popped into her mind. The slaves had named it so because of the way the bird came to people and rested on their hands. They made people feel good.

The doctor bird made Elyse feel good. It made her feel welcomed.

“Hello, little friend,” she whispered to the bird. An instant later, it flew away, leaving Elyse with a sense of peacefulness.