Captain's Bride (9 page)

Just like your father
, a tiny voice said. The
words plagued him day and night. Want of a woman had turned
Alexander Blackwell into a drunken failure and finally been the
death of him. It wouldn’t happen to Nicholas. Not for Gloria
Summerfield or any other woman.

He walked her up the hill to the house.

“Good-bye, Captain,” she said.

He squeezed her hand, left her with a polite
farewell, and made his way over to her mother, to whom he paid his
respects. A few minutes later, he was mounting his hired saddle
horse, riding out through the massive stone gates as quietly as he
had come. With a last glimpse over his shoulder, he spotted Glory
among the others dressed in black, looking pale and fragile. She
didn’t appear to notice those around her, just stood watching him
as he rode off down the lane.

“Mother, you can’t be serious!” Glory stormed about
the drawing room, her fists clenched at her sides, strands of blond
hair tumbling free of her tight chignon. “Nathan is my brother.
He’s a member of this family, just as much as I am!”

“Don’t say that! Don’t you ever say that to me
again!” Her mother’s features were distorted, her brown eyes
glistening with rage. “Nathan is a slave. That is
all
he is.
He belongs to Summerfield Manor. From now on he’ll work in the
fields just like the rest of the slaves.”

“Father’s not dead two weeks, and you’re already
trying to destroy his son!”

Her mother’s hand connected with Glory’s cheek so
hard she felt the sting of tears. The echo of the slap resounded
across the room.

“Don’t you ever refer to that . . . that
Nigra
as my husband’s son.”

Glory swallowed hard, but held her ground. “Father
meant for Nathan to be a free man of color. He was to receive his
papers on his twentieth birthday. That’s what Father wanted and you
know it.”

“What Julian wanted! Always what Julian wanted. What
about what I want? Do you think I wanted your father to flaunt his
affair with a Negro slave? Do you think I wanted him to raise his
bastard right here under my nose? Do you think I wanted to hear our
neighbors snickering at me behind my back?”

“I know it was hard on you, Mother. But it isn’t
Nathan’s fault. Let him go back up north. Let him return to school.
He can leave now instead of in the fall.”

“No! Nathan is a slave. He’ll take his place with the
rest of his people as he should have years ago.”

“Mother, please. Be reasonable. Nathan doesn’t know
the first thing about being a field hand. He wasn’t brought up that
way.”

“Then he’ll just have to learn.” She swept toward the
door. “I will not discuss this with you again, Glory. Ever. Go to
your room. When you come out, I expect you to behave like the lady
you’ve been taught to be. I never want to hear Nathan’s name
mentioned in this house again.” Her mother marched through the
doorway, then stopped and turned to face her. “There’s one more
thing,” she added. “I want you to stop consorting with the slaves.
Your father allowed it. I will not. From now on, you’ll keep to
your rightful place.” She left the room, and Glory remained behind,
dumbstruck.

How could this be happening? How could the woman do
such a thing to Nathan? Remembering her passionate words, Glory
realized she’d never understood the depth of her mother’s shame and
humiliation. Never really understood her at all. Part of her felt
sorry about the misery Louise had lived with all these years.
Another part hated her for the terrible payment she intended to
extol from Nathan, maybe even from Glory.

Nathan had been working in the rice fields for eight
days before Glory was able to see him alone. His tall frame already
looked gaunt; his hands and feet were covered with blisters, and
his shirt was tom and bloody from the marks of the whip. Glory
cried just looking at him.

“Oh, God, Nathan. What have they done to you?”

He raised himself up, a look of fierce pride
hardening his features as Glory had never seen them. “Nothing that
hasn’t been done to my people for hundreds of years.”

“But you’re different from the others. You’re
educated. You’re gentle and kind. You can’t stand up to this kind
of treatment. We’ve got to do something!”

“There’s nothing we
can
do, Glory. Your mother
has made up her mind. If I try to run, she’ll have the slave
catchers hunt me down. She owns me. She can do whatever she
wants.”

“That’s not good enough. I won’t stand by and do
nothing. I’ve had time to think about this, Nathan, and I’ve come
up with an idea.”

“Glory, it’s no use.”

“Listen to me, Nathan! We have to try. Father would
have wanted us to try.”

Nathan took a deep breath and looked out over the
still waters of the lagoon. They stood among the oaks, beneath
wispy strands of moss that hid them from the prying eyes of Jonas
Fry. “I suppose you’re right, Glory. You usually are.”

“Father had a friend,” Glory said. “A sea captain.
His name is Nicholas Blackwell. He’ll be in Charleston at the end
of the month. If we put the word out through some of the slaves, we
can find out exactly when he arrives. He’ll be in Charleston for
three days. We’ll go to him the day before he leaves. Surely we can
get as far as Charleston without being caught.”

“Will he take me north?” Nathan asked.

“I—I don’t know. He helped me once before, but I
don’t think we should risk telling him the truth. I’m going to tell
him there’s a family emergency of some kind. I have several
relatives in the North, so he should believe me. I’ll play on his
sympathies, his loyalty to Father.”

“And just how do you persuade him to take me
along?”

“I’ll tell him I brought you for protection.” She
smiled up at him. “After this past week, you ought to be able to
act like a slave.”

This time Nathan smiled. “Yassum, Miz Glory,” he said
with a deep Southern drawl. “Whatever you say. You is shorely da
boss.”

“Then you’ll do it?” she asked.

“Are you sure you’ll be safe with this . . . Captain
Blackwell?”

Glory felt a sudden warmth in her cheeks as she
remembered the tall captain’s kiss, the heat in his eyes that night
on the road. “I’ll be safe,” she said. But she wasn’t completely
sure—and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be.

Nathan clutched her hand. “All right, we’ll try it.
You just tell me what you want me to do.”

News of the captain’s arrival in Charleston reached
Glory through the slave grapevine. He was headed to New York with a
shipment of sugar and tobacco.

“Dat big boat o’ his come in dis mornin’,” Plenty
told her after checking to make certain they were alone in Glory’s
room. “I surely don’t like dis, chile.” Plenty shook her turbaned
head and clucked at her like a mother hen. “Don’t like seein’ you
go off by yourself like dis.”

“I’ll be with Nathan,” Glory reminded her. “I won’t
be gone that long. Once I get Nathan safely back to New York, I’ll
return on the first packet. I just thank God Father set up trust
funds for Nathan and me. He’ll have plenty of money to finish
school, and I won’t have to depend on my mother for anything ever
again.”

“She gonna have plenty of trouble runnin’ da manor
without you, chile.”

“She’ll be fine. She knows as much about running this
plantation as Father did. Besides, she doesn’t listen to anything I
have to say. She relies on Jonas Fry—the last man on earth Father
would have listened to.”

“I s’pose you’re right. I
know
you’re right
about helpin’ Nathan. Dat Jonas Fry never did like da boy. Says
he’s nothin’ but a uppity nigger. He’ll do his best to break da
boy. Your daddy wouldna liked dat one bit.”

“I just hope nothing goes wrong,” Glory said. “Nathan
and I have to be on that boat by the time the tide turns Thursday
morning. That’s when the
Black Spider
is supposed to
sail.”

But things did go wrong. The weather turned nasty.
Though the air was humid and warm, black clouds rolled and
thundered and slashes of lightning rent the sky. Glory waited till
she was sure the others were asleep, then dressed in a crisp black
pleated-faille traveling dress. She arranged her pale hair in
ringlets beside her face, then covered her head with a wide-brimmed
bonnet. Grabbing a lightweight mantle, she slipped down the
servants’ stairs to the back door.

“Good luck, chile,” Plenty whispered, enveloping
Glory in the folds of her thick girth. “Promise you’ll be
careful.”

“I promise,” Glory said. “Don’t you worry about a
thing.”

Plenty just nodded. Holding open the back door, she
watched Glory as she made her way to the stables in the light
rain.

Wearing his ragged work clothes, a floppy-brimmed hat
pulled low across his face, Nathan waited beside the bam next to a
canvas-topped gig. The gig was small and manageable, needing only
one horse to pull it the long way into town. They both climbed onto
the seat and Nathan slapped the reins lightly against the animal’s
rump.

“At first I thought this weather was a bad omen,”
Glory told him, “but now that I think about it, maybe it’s the
other way around. It makes a great cover, and the lane is so dark
and muddy we’re not likely to pass a soul.”

“Just as long as the rain doesn’t get any worse,”
Nathan cautioned. “The road’s barely passable as it is.”

But the rain did get worse, and the wind began to
howl. Several times Nathan was forced to stop the carriage to
remove heavy tree limbs that blocked their way or to clear a mound
of loose earth that had tumbled onto the road. He was thankful his
weeks of backbreaking work in the rice fields had muscled his
shoulders and legs and turned his blisters to calluses. When the
carriage bogged down in a mud hole just outside of Charleston, he
found he had strength he hadn’t known about. Together he and Glory
freed the gig and continued on. It was almost dawn by the time they
headed down Meeting Street toward the Battery. When they turned on
Tradd Street, headed for South Adg-er’s wharf, the tall masts of
the
Black Spider
beckoned in the graying light of dawn.

“Hurry, Nathan,” Glory urged. “They’re getting ready
to make way.” Glory’s heart pounded. The rain had slowed their
journey by hours. A few more minutes and they would have been too
late. “Somebody is bound to discover the gig sooner or later, but
by then we'll be well on our way.”

They climbed out of the carriage and hurried to the
gangplank, Glory walking in front, her dark clothes soaked and
clinging to her body, her hair wet beneath her soggy bonnet,
several long blond strands slicked against her cheek. Nathan
followed, carrying Glory’s big tapestry carpetbag as well as a
smaller bag of his own, his hat pulled low. Despite his light skin,
his ragged clothes and muscled body made him look just like any
other black man.

Several sea gulls screeching above the tall masts,
the sounds of creaking timbers, and the hustle of men at work drew
Glory’s attention as she walked along the narrow plank that crossed
from dock to ship.

She spotted Nicholas Blackwell in an instant, though
he was no more than an outline against the lightening sky. His
height, as well as his broad shoulders, long legs, and lean hips
set him apart from the others. For a moment she hesitated, a little
afraid to approach the intimidating figure who barked orders to his
crew with a stem authority that brooked no argument. Then she
thought of Nathan and squared her shoulders. After cautioning her
half brother to remain in the shadows, she headed toward the
captain.

The look of surprise on his lean, tanned face turned
rapidly to one of concern as he strode across the deck to greet
her.

“Glory, what is it?” he asked, taking in her
bedraggled appearance. “Has something happened?” He grasped her wet
hands in his and worriedly searched her face. The wind billowed the
open front of his white linen shirt. She noticed he wore a thin
gold earring in one ear.

“I need to talk to you, Captain,” she told him.

“Of course. Come into my cabin.”

They walked down the companionway and into the small
room, and Glory untied and removed her cloak and bonnet. Nicholas
draped them across a squat oak chair. She noticed the way his snug
black breeches, wet from the rain, clung to his lean hard thighs as
he pulled up another chair for her to sit in. Two long strides
carried him to a whale oil lamp beside his bunk.

The captain lit the lamp, though dawn was beginning
to break outside the low portholes above his wide berth. The bed
had been neatly made and was as orderly as the rest of the room.
Only a few open ledgers on the captain’s oak desk and several bound
volumes near his chair spoke of the work that went on in the
cabin.

From a crystal decanter the captain poured a little
brandy into the bottom of a snifter, handed her the glass, then sat
down at the end of his berth to face her. “Now, tell me what this
is all about.”

“I need your help, Captain Blackwell. My aunt in New
York is ill, and I must reach her right away.”

“Surely you’re not traveling alone?”

“Not exactly.” She took a sip of the brandy to steady
her nerves. “I brought one of the servants along for
protection.”

‘‘Where is your chaperon?” he asked, arching a fine
black brow.

“I . . . I didn’t have time to find one,” she
lied.

He regarded her closely. “You’re telling me you’ve
traveled in the rain all night, without a proper companion, because
you want me to help you reach your sick aunt.” His gray eyes said
he didn’t believe a word she said. “Why me? Why not a regular
passenger ship? The
Black Spider
is a merchant vessel.”

Glory took a steadying breath. This was going to be
harder than she thought. “The truth is, Captain, my mother and my
aunt don’t get along. My mother has forbidden me to go to her. I
hoped you would help me.”