Windswept (29 page)

“Good morning, Your Honor, Mrs. Seabrook, Hadley,” the clerk said. He took a piece of paper from the pocket of his impeccably groomed suit coat. “A man just delivered this note to the courthouse for you, sir. His name was Smythe, and while his appearance and demeanor were less than admirable, the message itself is most significant.” He waited, knowing he had everyone’s attention. “It’s from Miss Seabrook,” he said.

“Eleanor! My baby!” Sidonia squealed.

“Dear Nora,” Theo added, finally resting his fork on the rim of his plate.

Thurston rounded the dining room table with his hand outstretched. “Good God, man, give it to me.”

The note had obviously been hastily scrawled and bore the scars of indelicate handling, but Nora’s words were still legible. Thurston read aloud.

Dearest Father and Mama, I am sorry for the distress I know my absence has caused. I am on the
Dover Cloud
where I found myself as a result of my own devices, though it was not my intent to remain for the entire voyage. Jacob Proctor will return me to Key West safely when his business is concluded. Haven’t time to write more. Your loving daughter, Nora

Sidonia, whose weeping had subsided during the reading, grabbed the letter from Thurston’s hand and reread it silently. Thurston’s tortured digestive system settled into a tentative calm. His precious daughter was alive.

Dillard Hyde was the first to speak. “This is good news, isn’t it, Your Honor?”

“Yes, yes,” he responded cautiously. “I suppose it’s better than bad news at any rate.”

A wide grin split Fanny’s face. “See? I told you. Everything will be all right. Nora’s fine.” With a pointed look at Theo, she added, “Captain Proctor will protect her. Now maybe we can all get back to normal and go on with our lives. Nora will soon be home safely.”

Thurston was almost inclined to agree with her, and even cast a longing look at his breakfast plate. However, a steadily increasing keening from Sidonia banished all thoughts of life returning to normal. Her sobs grew in intensity until she was crying louder than ever before.

“You foolish people,” she blubbered through her tears. “Can’t you see what our poor Eleanor is telling us? She’s crying for help. She’s begging to be saved from that monster.”

Thurston took the note back and tried to blot some of the moisture that had begun to blur the writing. “Why do you say that, Sid? It seems to me that Nora is telling us she’s all right.”

Sidonia jabbed one plump finger at the paper. “It says right there that Eleanor did not intend to remain on
that man’s
ship. Don’t you understand, Thurston? He’s holding her captive! He forced her to write this note to throw us off the trail. She so much as admits that by saying she hasn’t time to write more. He probably had a knife at her throat as she penned this. Our Eleanor fears for her life!”

Sidonia sank into the nearest chair, slumped over the table and buried her face in her arms. “My poor baby is a pr…prisoner of that monster! Who knows what horrors…”

The gurgling started again in the pit of Thurston’s stomach, nearly drowning out his wife’s howls. “Oh, Sid…”

“Sir?” The dyspepsia increased with the sound of Theo’s voice.

“What is it, Hadley?”

“I’m afraid I must agree with Mrs. Seabrook.”

Nearly snarling at the young attorney, Thurston said, “Well, must you do it
now
, Theo?”

“I’m sorry, Your Honor, but I think Mrs. Seabrook has touched on the crux of this thing. Look at this handwriting. I know Nora’s penmanship to be flawless. I think she’s giving us clues, sir. This is a desperate plea from a terrified woman.” He bunched a handful of his sling in his good fist and moaned, “Blast this infernal injury. Would that I were able to sail the seas looking for her. I would, Your Honor. I would if I were able, and I would bring her back.”

Thurston tossed the note on the table and pushed past Theo. “Get out of my way, Hadley. I’m going to find that man Smythe and see what else he can tell me.”

“You won’t find him, sir,” Dillard said. “He’s already sailed. But I did ask him how Miss Seabrook appeared. If she seemed fit.”

“And?”

Dillard stepped cautiously back out of danger. “You wouldn’t have liked the way he phrased it, Your Honor, but he said Miss Seabrook was, let me recall his wording, ‘as fit a pigeon as the last buxom wench he’d coddled on his lap in a Newcastle tavern.’ I believe those were his exact words.”

“Oh, my God,” Sidonia screeched.

“Oh, my God,” Fanny cooed.

“This looks bad, sir,” Theo observed.

Thurston kept walking out the front door of his house. He wouldn’t catch Smythe, and he for damned sure wasn’t getting his breakfast, but outside the Seabrook house, there was plenty of fresh air.

Nora had never heard of trade winds until the
Dover Cloud
approached Belle Isle. While she had expected the heat to be oppressive in this region so close to the equator, that was not the case, due, she discovered, to those mysterious winds that kept the Caribbean at a near constant temperature all year.

“The sun’s rays hit the earth in a nearly direct path at the earth’s center,” Jacob told her. “But heat rises, and so do the winds along the equator. They rise and expand allowing room for polar air to flow underneath. That’s why the air is almost always dry and cool. Except for the months of mid-summer when the Trade Winds are replaced by the doldrums, the temperature rarely rises above eighty degrees.”

It was a cool, clear morning with a strong wind propelling the
Dover Cloud
when Nora first caught sight of Belle Isle. From some distance away it seemed a shining emerald in a rippling bed of cobalt and teal. They had passed other, larger islands during their voyage, but none as fortunately located as Lydia Proctor’s paradise. The closer they came, the more the ocean surrounding Belle Isle appeared streaked with shimmering ribbons of aqua and white, as if they had been painted from an artist’s pallet.

As they neared shore, Nora noted varieties of sweeping palms, tall ferns and flowering shrubs bordering the harbor and its cluster of small buildings. The harbor itself was nestled into an elbow of lush green land that provided a protective barrier for two wooden wharfs. The water had the sparkling clarity and glass smooth surface of a peaceful lagoon.

“This must be Angel Kiss Bay,” Nora said to herself, remembering the picturesque name she’d heard for the harbor.

Jacob appeared beside her. “It is,” he concurred with an unmistakable hint of pride. “The first time she came here, my grandmother said the natural inlet looked as though it had been kissed by an angel.”

Nora understood what Lydia Proctor had seen that day. It truly seemed as if an angel with gossamer wings had left some of her heavenly dust sprinkling on the water in the golden sun.

The longest of the wharfs jutted into the ocean no more than three hundred feet. It was barely long enough to accommodate the
Dover Cloud
. Other vessels tied to the docks were small fishing crafts and rafts. Most of the boats did not have any sails at all, but relied on oars and poles to navigate the sea. Many of these crafts ventured into the water to meet Jacob’s ship as it drifted under minimal sail to shore. Jacob’s crew stood by the deck rail and caught fruit thrown up to them by olive-skinned natives who had rowed out to escort the
Dover Cloud
.

“These people are happy to see you,” Nora said and then gave Jacob a teasing grin. “It’s nice to know you have a commendable reputation in some parts of the world.”

“It’s not so much my reputation,” he said. “They know I bring goods they can’t get on the island.”

“So you are a sort of Father Christmas to them.”

He smiled as if the image pleased him. “Maybe, but I think this time they are more interested in you than in the items in the hold. See how they are pointing up at you and talking to each other? By tonight you will be the gossip at all Belle Isle dinner tables.”

“Just as you are the gossip at Key West tables,” she said.

He leaned close and whispered in her ear, “Ah, but aren’t you glad the rumors spoken about you are not nearly so slanderous as the ones spoken about me.”

He left her then and went to oversee the docking procedure. Nora watched indistinct shapes of pitched-roofed structures slowly become square clapboard or daub and wattle cottages.

When the ship was secure and Nora first stepped onto the wooden dock, she realized that the Belle Isle harbor was different from any other she’d seen. Most noticeably, aside from a small cafe and a larger tavern, there were no business establishments. There was however, an active marketplace, and Nora was drawn to it immediately. With baskets swinging from their arms, women in colorful dress walked among the vendors. They purchased fish and produce mainly, though bits of cloth, straw goods, and household trinkets were available in limited quantities.

Nora tried to imagine her mother shopping in this market, and the notion brought a smile to her lips.
Mama thinks Key West is barren of goods. She would consider this a wasteland. What it must be like to pick from merchandise that is totally lacking in luxuries.
Yet to Nora the market had a simple rustic appeal. “Raw beauty” she remembered Jacob calling it.

Just as his name came to mind, the man himself appeared beside her. His hand rested on her elbow. “For a minute I thought I’d lost you,” he said. “You shouldn’t wander off by yourself, Nora.”

She let her gaze roam the length of the market which couldn’t have been more than a city block in size and then pinned him with a disapproving glare. “That’s ridiculous, Jacob. I could hardly get lost here.”

His hand tightened on her arm. “Not here, but I told you not to go off by yourself anywhere on the island. It will be very important for you to remember that when we get to the house.”

Yes, he had told her, and she had reluctantly agreed. “All right,” she sighed. “I promise to be a good girl.”

He relaxed his hold and called for a carriage that had appeared amidst the confusion at the end of the market. It was a smart two-seater, as elegant as any Nora had seen in Richmond, and it was drawn by a pair of matching Appaloosas expertly handled by an olive-skinned islander.

When Nora raised her brows, questioning such an unexpected extravagance, Jacob shrugged. “My father refused to live on the island without the barest necessities. Through the years he has imported most of what existed at Braxton Manor.”

He supervised the loading of several baskets and crates onto the carriage and then assisted Nora into one of the seats. After instructing Will to unload the rest of the
Dover Cloud’s
cargo into a thatched roof warehouse, he climbed in beside Nora. The driver turned the horses around and they headed away from the harbor on a narrow road paved with crushed limestone and coral and bordered by brilliant tropical shrubs.

The trail wound through level countryside to the interior of the island where the topography suddenly became hilly and thick with lush vegetation. Jacob explained that his grandmother had brought many of the flowering plants to Belle Isle from other, more populated islands in the Caribbean. Through the years the gardeners had kept them pruned and fertile.

Soon the primitive road merged with an even narrower one- lane path that twisted up a steep hillside through gum and chestnut trees. When they were nearly at the top, the lane widened to offer a view of a sprawling, one-story wood and brick residence. Sun filtering through leafy tree branches gleamed starkly off white walls. Six columns supported a massive front porch that stretched almost the entire length of the house. Each room opened onto the shaded veranda with French doors stained a light apple green.

The driver stopped in front of the main portal, carved of deep walnut with an elephant’s head for a door knocker. Jacob stepped down from the buggy and offered his hand to Nora. “Welcome to Proctor House.”

Scents of jasmine and gardenia filled the air until Nora was almost dizzy from the fragrance. Brilliant orange flame vines climbed the columns to meet blossoms of poincianas draping the rooftop of the low house. “It’s absolutely magnificent,” she said.

A large-framed woman in a white dress and flowered bandana came out the front door. She cast a familiar glance at Jacob before her gaze raked Nora from top to bottom. “Welcome home, Captain Proctor,” she said.

“It’s good to see you, Juditha,” he responded formally. There appeared to be no affection between these two. “Does he know I’m here?”

“He knows. I had him outside in the garden when the ship came into the harbor. He saw everything from the hilltop.”

“And how goes he today? Fair or ill?”

She descended the one step to be nearer to Jacob. She tried to keep her voice at a low level, but obviously a demure manner of speaking did not come naturally to this commanding woman. “Not well, Captain, I’m afraid.”

“And Dylan?”

Dylan?
Having never heard this name before, Nora wondered about the identity of this person.

“He’s quiet. He doesn’t understand that you’ve arrived today. Probably won’t until you visit him.” She passed a clandestine glance at Nora and added, “You’ve never brought anyone here before, Captain. I really must question the wisdom of doing so now.”