The Winds of Fate (6 page)

A dark cloud of annoyance swept across her face while her uncle reflected on the bargain to satisfy the Governor’s humor. The baron pursed his lips into a pout while stroking his fleshy chins, contemplating his new lucrative investment. Beside Devon, Ames scarcely breathed.

“Eleven pounds.” She spoke up, daring the other bidder to defy her.

“I’m done,” Cox, the mine owner hissed and stalked off.

Devon heard Ames utter praise to a higher power, but not before he observed the exhilaration in his wife’s eyes. He was hauled before her.

“I have never−I really don’t know what to−” She cleared her throat. “Do you have nothing to say?” She flushed beneath his glare.

Did she recognize him? He made an exaggerated bow to mock her. “I am your slave, ready for your amusement,” he seethed the words. He saw her lips part in surprise. He almost laughed in her face. To think she bought her own husband and didn’t even realize it.

“You should thank your benefactor. I saved you from a horrid life in the bauxite mines,” she cut him off.

“I suppose I should thank the disgrace of humanity that buys and sells human flesh.”

She returned an icy look then turned her dainty nose upward, dismissing him like an outgoing tide. Repugnance filled his soul, the thought of being the property of a golden-eyed witch and her uncle, an ill-formed creature. He came face to face with the beady-eyed monster.

“Good God. What medical college?”

“Trinity College. And since I’m to be bought and sold like a horse−”

“Found your tongue did you?” Baron Jarvis’s cheeks exploded with color and he whacked him hard with his cane. “You’ll learn respect.”

Devon stepped toward him, but held back a retort. Better to hold his tongue then profit from a beating. His angry gaze swung over his wife. The crowd sped her away with hearty congratulations. He hated the impotence of being sold into slavery, and with that hatred, he vowed all thoughts of revenge upon her person.

The men were divided and herded into wagons. The procession remained slow. The massive chains lay heavy, an encumbrance to climbing in the wagons. The guards collected beneath the shade of a palm tree, the prisoners in their sights, waiting for the planter’s orders.

“You lost your bloody wits.” Ames chastised him. “So what if she bought you. At least we’re together. Be thankful for that.”

“I’ll be thankful to get off this hellhole of an island.” Devon chafed and watched her ride away with her uncle.

“So that’s the lay of it,” said Ames.

Devon laughed to the bemusement of his friend. “It’s a strange twist of fate that I escaped the hangman’s noose into another world of slavery. And an even stranger fate that I be put here of all places.”

“Fate?” Ames asked.

“Without question,” Devon replied. But since that increased his friend’s confusion, he added, “I do believe you were right, Mr. Ames. My wits were lagging, and they haven’t come back yet.”

“Don’t get all starry-eyed over the Baron’s niece,” Ames cautioned. “He’ll be ready to teach you a lesson real quick.”

“You’re right. I’ll be laid to waste. But you know, Mr. Ames, I’m inclined to think now that I might enjoy our sojourn in this tail end of the world.”

“At forfeit to your life? I hope that doesn’t mean you’ll amuse yourself, harboring a grudge against the lady.”

“Amuse? Certainly, or didn’t you observe, the lady and I have declared war.”

“O
h Lily, I do depend on your practical nature to keep me from wailing at all the unfairness of the world. Cookie’s fever is raging out of control and I’m responsible for her welfare.” Claire paced the parlor of her uncle’s great house, anxiously waiting for the two doctors she had summoned for the third time in five days.

Cookie or rather Mrs. Simson had been the cook under the employ of the late baron, Claire’s father. At a young age, Claire had difficulty pronouncing Mrs. Simson, and so, had adopted the name of Cookie. From the time they could walk, Claire and Lily spent time in the kitchen with Cookie who delighted in having her two young charges under her feet.

“When my parents were alive…” Claire touched her heart, thinking of them and all the love they showered on her. Sitting on her father’s knee, listening to his deep rumble of laughter, or listening to her mother sing to her. That was before the accident. Their carriage had been struck broadside by a driver-less coach. Over and over their carriage had tumbled down a sharp ravine−her lovely mother with a broken neck, her father dying days later. Claire survived. It was a living testament to the love they held for their only child. For cushioned safely in between her parents, she emerged unscathed.

Yet her dear papa never realized he would not survive to his senior years. He had neglected to make provisions for his only daughter in the eventuality of his death and had been inattentive of his brother’s greed and temperament. Her father’s brother, Sir Jarvis wasted no time in securing the title of Baron and all the family’s holdings. One early morning, the girls were placed in a carriage and driven deep
into London. They had been dropped off into a honeycomb of filth, so confined, it made Claire shudder to remember the long ago experience. Dirt besmirched walls, rot and garbage, families stuffed like beans in a bag, children with matted hair walking barefoot, men and women drinking, squabbling, fighting and screaming every foul invective imaginable. Bewildered, the two girls had wandered the rookeries of St. Giles, frightened from the ragged children who stole their rich coats. Claire had pulled Lily beneath a stairwell. Soot dripped on them and they shivered from the dank cold. Scouring trash bins for food became a learned ritual. Scared out of her wits, Claire had wanted to cry. She had refused to give into that impulse and had comforted Lily. She needed to protect her cousin. When darkness emerged, a more fearful experience descended. Men leered−and groped at her, trying to lure her into their carriages. The promise of a bit of bread to a child whose stomach gnawed with hunger came tempting. Despite her sheltered life, her body had trembled with the evil they represented and she ran away.

With a week spent in the country, tending her ill sister, Mrs. Simpson returned to discover the girls were missing. Little had been done about an investigation. She could not prove Jarvis was at the bottom of the farce nor did she trust him. No way did she believe his weak explanation of being in another town at the time of the kidnapping. Her maternal instincts exploded. She questioned everyone. Most of the servants remained silent, terrified of going up against a knight of the realm. A stable boy gave her a clue. He had been sleeping up in the loft when Sir Jarvis and a strange man had visited. He had not heard all the conversation. The girl’s names were associated with St. Giles.

Were her babies forsaken to that devil’s pesthole? Cookie rose like an avenging angel. She contacted her brother, a pickpocket who lived in Jacob’s Island, the heart of that rotting dunghill of humanity. She waited, praying to a higher power. A week later her prayers were answered when her brother showed up with her two little frightened and filthy girls.

Mrs. Simson had confronted Jarvis. When he told her the girls were no concern of his, she flew into a rage and resigned. Cookie had
procured a solicitor, an old family friend to secure the small inheritance Claire received from her mother that Jarvis did not get his hands on. With frugality, they lived as a family. Without Cookie’s intervention, Claire knew their circumstances would have been dire.

Lily studied Claire over the brim of her teacup. “Let’s put our mind on other things for the time being. I find conversation diverting in times of crisis.”

Claire stopped. Why did her thoughts drift again to that damn convict? “I can’t believe what I’ve been reduced to since our arrival in Jamaica. I bought a slave because I felt sorry for him, making a spectacle of myself. Thank the Governor for my rescue, turning it into a humorous feminine ploy instead of the fiasco it truly was.”

Lily pushed her spectacles up her nose. “He didn’t seem happy about you buying him. I wonder why?”

Claire shrugged. “Far be it from me to ascertain the nuances of men. To think I received nothing but his scorn for saving the ungrateful wretch’s neck.” She grimaced, the abhorrent sale of men a bitter taste upon her tongue.

She moved to a window and watched a slave struggling to heave Sir Jarvis up on his stallion. The animal bowed beneath his weight. “I curse the day I ran into my uncle in London. He had disappeared for years. I never dreamed he lived in Jamaica,” Claire said unable to shrug off her melancholia. He recognized me, looked me over like a broodmare then pushed me off on London’s most expensive modistes.”

“Greed and personal profit are paramount to him. For Jarvis to reap a fortune, you had to be fitted with all the finery to entrap a wealthy husband.”

“It was the finery I needed. I am plain, Lily. Men see me as a friend with no romantic attachment.”

“You are far from plain,” Lily admonished. “To save money, you dressed practical. As I told you before, you are more beautiful than your mother, and she was known as a great beauty. But even without all the silks and satins you are beautiful. Your uncle hedged his bets on you.”

“Attempting to navigate the fashionable circles in London was unfamiliar territory for me. I felt different and awkward, never quite fitting. I didn’t really know how to react to all the male attention. They were all so stuffy and pretentious, the men lofty and arrogant, the women preening for attention, cruel and vicious, too.” Claire scoffed at being launched in society.

“The men were always available to comment on your beauty,” Lily said.

“By which I knew they were either blind or liars, and since they could see their way to the wine well enough, I concluded the latter. I was distracted by the social whirl. The balls, teas, operas everything society had to offer, but early on, I have to confess, Lily, it lost its luster. I grew bored. To think I had even entertained marrying a man of that world, an idle aristocrat who would leave me alone. She sighed. “A nice quiet, uninvolved man. That would be wonderful.”

Lily arched her eyebrow. “Your friend Hyacinth married a sea-captain, and looked forward to traveling to the many parts around the world.”

Claire grew thoughtful. “I’ve always loved accounts of exotic lands. Sometimes I think I’m like my dashing father who would thrive in foreign environs. But I’m ruled by my mother’s strong streak of conservatism. Besides such exotic movements are forbidden for young women unless they are accompanied by male relatives.”

“We shall treat Jamaica as a learning experience,” Lily maintained with an air of briskness.

Claire shook her head. “I much prefer my attachment to London. It’s reliable. Never did I think I could exist without it. But I have to tell you, Lily−” Colorful exotic flowers bloomed in the manicured gardens. Claire sighed. “Being placed in Jamaica has awakened a need for open spaces. There is a connection here, as if my father and mother are with me.”

Lily nodded in agreement. “I also have developed an attachment. All the damp and congestion of London I can leave behind. But I do miss the bookshops. Thanks to you, I am content with unfettered access to the Governor’s library during our sojourn.”

“We’ve been through a lot together but without Cookie, we would never have survived.”

The two physicians arrived and Claire showed them to Cookie’s room. They laid out their instruments to bleed her again. Ice spread through Claire’s stomach.

“She is so pale,” Lily whispered. “I’ve read everything I could from the books in the Governor’s library. I cannot glean anything to aid in fixing this odd ailment. I feel so helpless.”

“If only I had not dragged her here. The heat has been torturous,” said Claire.

“If they bleed her one more time−I fear her passing.”

The physician raised his lance. The sharp blade hovered above Cookie’s arm. Claire bit her lip. “Stop. There must be something else you can do.”

The physician looked down his nose at her with all the arrogance his office afforded him. “I’m afraid she will die unless I perform this surgery.”

Claire bristled. “I’m afraid she will die if you do.”

He smiled. “You are new to our locale and most probably sensitive to female vapors. I insist you leave the room. Let a more knowledgeable person perform his lifesaving skills.

Claire’s nostrils flared with her fury. “Get out.”

The physicians looked at one another as if they had not heard her right. Claire corrected that notion by grabbing a lance off the bed and pointing it at them. “You heard me. Get out. A dog could come up with a better prescription for survival. I’ll not let her die at your hands.” She backed them out of the room and slammed the door. When they cried for their instruments, Claire obliged. She tossed their bags out the window.

Lily placed a cool cloth on Cookie’s forehead. “That was nicely done. Whatever are we to do now? I’m afraid our own counsel is worn out.”

Claire hands shook. “What have I done? I’ve signed her death warrant.”

Lily turned to pull back the drapes. Sunlight fell on dark shadow.