Beyond the Savage Sea Page 15

  She went on drawing for a long time. He floated in the tide. God! He panted. When she finished, she gave him Katherine’s letter and he studied it.

  “This is wonderful, Edwinna.” Her talent surprised him. She had caught Priscilla perfectly—the mischievous, haughty little imp. She had caught him, too—the humorous look of outrage on his face as Priscilla bit him. There was another of Priscilla waiting in ambush for him on top of the coral water drip. Had it not been for the throbbing in his head and shoulder, he would have laughed.

  Flushing in pleasure, she worked on William’s letter. Drake watched through eyes that grew heavy with pain. A cane field sprang up, so real Drake could almost hear the cane rustling. Cane cutters bent to their work. Drake himself stood in the cane field, arms crossed.

  When she was finished, he sat with the two letters in his hands, admiring them. “These drawings are superb, Edwinna. “

  Mesmerized by the pain and the clear shine of her hair, he reached out and touched it.

  She drew back.

  “I—I had best take your letters downstairs and seal them and send them to Speightstown.”

  She left the room as quickly as she could. Drake watched her go, touched by her distress, but suffering with his own.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  The pain grew unbearable for Drake that night. Warned by David Alleyne that it would, Edwinna slept lightly, listening for him, and when she heard the rhythmic creak of a floorboard in his room, she knew he was pacing. She rose, used flint and tinder from her tinderbox to light a candle, and swiftly dressed. She carried the candle to his open door. Worshipful of Drake, eager to be of help, Jeremy had brought a pallet to the hall floor. But he was a child and slept deep and blissful, oblivious to Drake’s wakefulness. Drake’s room lay dark.

  “Drake, shall I fetch David Alleyne?”

  “No.” He uttered a small laugh, a harsh, ragged edge to it. “Don’t bother to wake him. There’s nothing to be done.” He came forward into the candlelight, casting a long, dark shadow, his handsome face haggard. He managed a smile. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you with this confounded pacing.”

  “I was listening for you. Can I get you anything?”

  “No.” He gestured with his good arm at the nightstand.

  Everything he needed stood there: a rum flask, a pitcher of squeezed juices, a crock of cold water from the coral drip, laudanum drops.

  “Then, can I do anything for you?”

  “Yes. Tie this damned sling tighter, if you will.”

  “Of course.” Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to step into her father’s room, hearing the echo of her father’s voice in the darkness. You whore’s daughter. I’ll flog the living daylights out of you, lest you grow up to be what your mother is—a sea captain’s whore. Father, please! Please don’t hit me again. Heart pounding, she went in and set the candle on the livery cabinet.

  Drake painfully lowered himself to a footstool and sat. The knot had slipped to his chest. She knelt before him to work on it. It was a peculiar sensation to be so close to him. Her heart thundered, causing her hands to tremble as she worked on the knot.

  “Don’t be afraid of me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Good.”

  He smelled of sweat and rum and pain. He had a fever, too. Even through his bandages his skin radiated intense heat. While he cradled his shoulder and arm, she relied the knot, pulling it tighter. She worked gently. Even so, he gritted his teeth.

  “Drake you have fever.”

  “I’m also slightly drunk.”

  She drew back.

  “Don’t be afraid of me!” he reiterated harshly, seizing her hand and bringing it back to the knot to finish the work. “I never hurt a female in my life and I will not hurt you. I have never hurt any female and never will. I will not hurt you or any other woman on this plantation.”

  “I know that, Drake,” she said softly. And she did. She had only to think of the way he was with Jeremy and Marigold and Tutu and even Priscilla, to know that. She finished the knot then sat back on her knees, wishing she could ease his suffering.

  He smiled, his blue eyes, usually so clear, smoky now with pain and rum.

  “Do you know what I like about you, Edwinna? I like the cleanness of your soul. And don’t ask me what that means, for I’m too drunk to know what I’m thinking.”

  Afraid that he might kiss her with his hot, feverish mouth—he was looking at her lips so intently—she got to her feet and tended to the candle, which was burning too fast in the breeze. She put a perforated tin candle guard over it. The light grew dim, speckles of light dotting the walls. The ceiling looked like a field of fireflies. Drake rose with a groan and began to pace. She sat in a chair, anxious. From the mill came the sound of the grinder rumbling.

  “It’s not necessary for you to keep me company, Edwinna.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I’m poor company tonight.”

  “I’ve known worse.”

  Drake halted and gazed at her. Raggedly he said, “Well, then, let’s talk. It will keep my mind off the pain. What would you like to talk about?”

  “Tell me about your wine business.”

  Drake retrieved the rum flask from the nightstand and carried it with him while pacing. It was a vile, hellish drink. He loathed the taste, the way it burned a hole in his gut, but it did the job. Tonight the kill-devil was a mercy.

  He paced and talked wine for an hour. He talked himself silly. It kept his mind off the agony. Edwinna sat listening, rapt, her eyes shining in the candlelight. He talked and talked. He told her the Steel family history—how the wine shop had been in the family in the same location on Thames Street for one hundred fifty years, how it had prospered in some eras, gone begging in others. It was now at its lowest ebb—the penalty imposed upon the Steels for their allegiance to the king.

  Because she was a good listener and he was in so much pain, he went beyond the wine business and told her of his hopes and plans for the future, how he longed to reclaim the Steel family home—Highgate Hall—for William’s inheritance.

  Then, to keep the pain at bay, he talked wine simply for the sake of talking wine, expounding on the different properties of burgundy, claret, Madeira, canary. He told her of his wine-buying trips to France and Portugal, his small adventures there. He did not tell her he’d had a double mission, delivering messages and money from the Sealed Knot to exiled cavaliers. He was not that drunk, nor that trusting. She was pro-Cromwell.

  She listened to it all—truly listened. Her occasional comment or pertinent question proved it. He was surprised and said so.

  “You don’t seem a damned bit bored,”

  “Bored?” Her eyes widened in surprise. “Why should I be?”

  “Most women I’ve known find business boring.”

  “I find it interesting. I like business.”

  “My wife,” Drake said, taking a sip from the flask; “did not find it interesting. Anne used to say “wine, wine, wine—it is meant to be drunk, Drake, not talked to death.”

  “She sounds clever and witty,” Edwinna offered softly.

  “She was.”

  “And beautiful, like Katherine.”

  “That, too,” Drake admitted. “Tell me about your life,” he said sharply. “What do you do besides sugar?”

  She smiled a little. “Besides sugar? Nothing. What do you do besides wine?”

  Despite his agony, he had to smile. “Nothing.” He toasted her with the rum flask. “We’ve that in common, then. We are both working maniacs. What about friends? Who are your friends here in Barbados?” He’d never thought to ask the question before. Barbarian, he thought. You’ve never even tried to get to know her. You want to bed her, but you don’t want to know her.

  “I haven’t many,” she admitted, her eyes aglow. “There are not many women in Barbados. Only planters’ wives. I have little in common with them. They dislike life here and talk of nothing but retu
rning to England. I suppose my closest friends are Matthew Plum, Simon Tarcher in Speightstown, Dinny.” He winced, feeling like a traitor; he had bedded Dinny. “And Kena, of course,” she added.

  He paced. “David Alleyne is in love with Kena.”

  “I know.”

  “What will you do if he asks to marry her?”

  “Marry her?” Her eyes widened in surprise.

  “Yes, damn it, marry her! I’m sure he intends it.”

  “I want the best for my sister. And for Tutu. I’m not sure that marriage to a white man...”

  “Look at the heart, Edwinna, not at the color of the skin. David Alleyne is trustworthy.”

  “I don’t trust many...people,” she admitted. He gazed at her. Men, you mean, darling. You don’t trust men. “Do you have many friends in London, Drake?”

  The pain made him terse, made him talk in clipped sentences. She didn’t seem to mind. “Many acquaintances. Few true friends. Only two close to my heart—my brother-in-law, Arthur, and my best friend since boyhood, Charles Dare. I’ve lost track of Charles. He went to Holland about the same time my wife died. I miss him.”

  He paced quietly and groaned. He couldn’t hold it back. The sounds of Barbados filled the night. The grinder rumbled, palm branches rattled in the trade wind, tree frogs whistled shrilly, fruit bats flapped their large wings as they settled into the guava and paw-paw trees in the yard.

  “Life is full of loss, isn’t it, Drake?”

  “Yes, it is. That goddamned savage sea.” He lifted the rum and drank deeply. He wondered if William and Catherine would like her for a mother. He decided they would. Lord, he thought, I must be truly inebriated.

  He changed the subject to the harvest. They talked on, until the kill-devil finally got on top of the awful pain and he could stop pacing. When he did, he eased his sweaty, trembling body onto the bed, into the nest of pillows, and shut his eyes.

  Edwinna kept watch until his breathing evened out, until he was asleep. Then she took the candle and went to her room, stepping carefully around Jeremy, who slept with an arm sprawled on the floor.

  Loss? Yes, she’d suffered loss, and she already knew what her next loss would be. She would lose Drake Steel. When this handsome London wine merchant returned to his complex life in England, he would not come back, despite his promise to do so. He would cease to remember a small, insignificant Caribbean island where trade winds blew through cane fields and where the weather was ever the same; warm and balmy, in winter and summer, spring and autumn, year upon year. If he ever gave her a passing thought as years went by, it might be with some slight gratitude—she had once saved his life—but nothing more. Unhappy over the inevitable loss, she got into her bed and fell asleep, missing him already.

  Drake suffered intensely three more days. Then, he began to mend. A strong-bodied man in his prime, he came strolling down to the cane fields by the end of the week—gingerly, to be sure, and with shoulder tightly bound and arm in sling—but he came! Seeing him out and about, Edwinna smiled.

  * * * *

  Drake had been waiting for a letter for weeks. It finally arrived on a sunny harvest afternoon, sent up from Speightstown. Knowing how dearly it was wanted, Edwinna took it and ran out to the cane fields, braid swinging.

  “Drake, a letter!”

  He came bounding out of a field of cane stubble, careless of his shoulder. He seized the letter, sat in the cane path, and patted the ground beside him for her to sit, too. She knelt quickly, anxious for him. His hand trembled undoing the leather packet. She understood. Letters could bring bad news as well as good.

  He gave her a quick look and considerately asked, “Any letter from Thomas and Harry?”

  “No. Perhaps next time.”

  “Surely.”

  He yanked his thick, multi-page letter out of the packet. “It’s from Verity.” He took a deep breath, scanned the opening page, expelled his breath, and gave her a quick, dazzling smile. “William and Katherine are well and sound and healthy.”

  “Drake, I’m so glad.”

  “Listen to this: ‘My beloved brother. First, the news you surely crave. William and Katherine are hale and hearty and in the best of health and spirits. Katherine took the measles this winter, but I do assure you they left her none the worse. She remains sound in every faculty—eyesight, hearing, heart, and her quick little brain. The only calamity your William suffered this winter is the loss of his baby teeth. The new teeth are coming in—great, huge, manly teeth that will do him proud—and he looks for all the world like an adorable chipmunk. Your children are a joy. They love us and we love them, and I do assure you their only complaint in life is that they want their papa.’ ”

  Drake touched a finger to the corner of his eye. Edwinna watched. “Drake? Let’s send for your children. Bring them here. I would gladly pay.”

  “No, Edwinna, but thank you for offering,” he said, excitedly returning to his letter. “I’ve already lost a wife to that goddamned savage sea. I won’t risk my children.”

  “No, of course not.” She was disappointed. She would have liked Drake’s children in her house, mothering them, loving them.

  “Listen to this. ‘Now, my great fool of a brother who set sail on a ship ill equipped to fight pirates, shall I endeavor to describe how Arthur and I felt when your letter came? Impossible. Let it suffice to say we shouted, we wept, we laughed, we fell to our knees in thanks to God who saved you alive. Your precocious William grew much vexed with us, saying, “Of course my papa is alive. You said he was, Aunt Verity!

  ‘For in truth, though we heard nothing of you in eight months, we staunchly refused to believe you dead and forbade your children to think it. We clung fervently to our faith in the Almighty, that he would restore you to us, which, praise God, he has done. I sternly admonish you, Drake, to tell Mistress Edwinna Crawford that she has earned my undying love and my everlasting devotion for her rescue of you.’ ”

  “She’s wonderful, Drake. I like Verity.”

  He glanced at her with an excited smile. “So do I. We’ve had our battles royal, but Verity is Verity.”

  A physical man, he needed physical release for his high excitement. She knew that. So when he impulsively reached out and squeezed her hand, she made nothing of it. To him, it was a mere release. He would have touched anyone who’d brought him the letter.

  In a state of excitement, he went on reading, but for her the touch was stirring. He had a big, strong hand, darkly tanned, the back of it sprinkled with black hair.

  Drake went on reading aloud, a courtesy to her. Whenever he glanced at her, she smiled. But in truth, the more he read of Verity’s letter, the more distant she felt. Drake’s world was as separated from her world as the moon from the earth. What did she know of a sister called Verity and of a wine shop on a street called Thames Street in a city called London? She only knew of sugar cane and Barbados. Hearing him read, hearing the bits and pieces of his life, she felt unhappy. But she smiled boldly each time he smiled, wanting him to be happy.

  And he was. In addition to joyful family news—after seven years of childless marriage, Verity and Arthur were expecting their first child—the political news excited Drake, sent him into raptures. She listened politely, understanding little of it. Oliver Cromwell’s son and successor, Richard Cromwell, was proving an inept leader. Dissatisfaction had spread. All England was now clamoring for the restoration of the monarchy. King Charles’s loyal General Monck was said to be poised in Scotland with his army, ready to ride down upon London to force Parliament to bring the king back from exile in Holland.

  Rejoicing, Drake strode back to the house in an euphoric state. Striding along beside this tall, handsome man in his sweaty work clothes, she gazed at him and knew with sorrowful certainty that he would not come back once he left Barbados.

  * * * *

  The twenty-sixth of February, the date Drake thought he’d overheard in Bridgetown while spying on the bondslaves’ midnight meeting, had come and gone
without incident. Edwinna had been tense about that. She’d worn a loaded pistol whenever she was out on the plantation, night or day. Matthew Plum and Drake each wore one, too.

  There was undercurrent on the plantation that worried and angered her. Other planters reported the same thing. The field slaves and bondslaves seemed spooked, as if someone were intimidating them. When she questioned them, they insisted they knew nothing. Drake and Plum tended to believe them, but someone or something was frightening them.

  Incensed, she’d done something headstrong and rash. She’d marched into the cane fields and harshly questioned Jacka. She’d learned nothing. Jacka had been insolent, demanding the thirty shillings reward that was rightfully his for the runaway slave Drake had freed. Also, he’d denied that he or Yates or Hastings had been at any so-called midnight meeting in Bridgetown. She’d wanted to flog him. Only the thought that she would be following in her father’s and her uncle’s footsteps stopped her.

  When Drake found out what she’d done, he came bounding into the boiling house where she was training a new slave. Blue eyes blazing, he grabbed her by the elbow and walked her out of the place.

  “What is it?” she demanded.

  “Not here.”

  He walked her rapidly up the hill, past the loud, noisy grinding platform and up to the stone windmill. Not until they stood behind the windmill in privacy did he free her elbow from his angry grip.

  “What in the devil do you think you’re doing, Edwinna, confronting Jacka like that? Are you crazy? Jeremy was out there with the affingoes and he told me about it.”

  “I won’t have my slaves and bondslaves intimidated, Drake! I’m sick of this. Crawford Plantation is my responsibility. I want to get to the bottom of this.”

  “Well, so do I! But not like this. Good lord, Edwinna, if there is a conspiracy underway—if Jacka or any other bondslave on this plantation is involved—you could be killed just for knowing about it. You could be left slain in a cane field with no one able to figure out what happened to you.”