Surrender the Wind (33 page)

A slow breath slipped from her mouth as she set her hand on the stair rail. She climbed the steps and came out on deck, in the full glare of the sun. The breeze rushed through her unbound hair, and her gown of pale blue muslin wrapped about her frame.

All eyes nearby turned and men halted in their work. Silence fell, and they drew together to stare. The crew was a fearsome knot of seamen; some barrel-chested, others thin as bowsprits. Most dragged off their caps to her and nodded.

“I wish to speak to the captain,” Juleah said to the man nearest her. Meeting the man's eyes, she raised her face. “Please take me to him.”

He stepped forward. She stared at him, and he took off his tricorn hat, swept it in front of his chest, and bowed low. She was taken aback by his pirate-like appearance, the gold rings that sparkled through sagging earlobes. A pair of bucket-top boots covered his thick legs, and a red silk scarf surrounded his throat. His hair hung long about his shoulders. It was the blackest she had ever beheld, streaked gray and adorned with thin braids. His face held an expression of courtesy, though lined and bronzed from the sun and salt air.

“At your service.” His dark eyes looked into her face and his right brow arched.

Juleah forced fear down. “I’ve been taken aboard your ship against my will. If you are a God-fearing man and a loyal subject to His Majesty and his laws, you will turn your vessel around and return me to England.”

A round of laughter rippled through the crew, which caused Juleah to clutch the fabric of her dress.

“I can’t do that,” he said. “We’re far out to sea. You can disembark with your servant when we reach land.”

“Servant?” Juleah stepped forward. “She's a fraud. She drugged me.” Still the effects of the potion were with her. She raised a trembling hand to her face. Then she stamped her foot. “I demand you return me home.”

The captain held out his hand. “Let us discuss this in my cabin, not in front of my crew.” Some of his men shifted on their feet and murmured. Their leader threw a fierce look over his shoulder at them. “To work you scurvy dogs. Give the lady leave. Away, I say! Or I’ll have your ogling eyes plucked out and fed to the gulls.”

Juleah disliked this man and his threatening manner, but she was glad to hear his bold threats, for it told her he would protect her. The sailors turned away, except for one. His eyes met Juleah's. He looked like he wanted to come to her aid. With a brief smile, he nodded to her and turned back to the ropes he coiled.

Inside his quarters, the captain bid Juleah be seated at the table. He poured her a glass of Madeira and offered it to her. She did not accept, but he took a swallow. Its heat colored his cheeks. After another taste, he set the glass on the table, over which a brass lamp swayed to the gentle heave of the ship.

“Be at ease,” he said. “No one shall harm you aboard my ship.”

“I thank you for that, Captain …”

“Roche.”

“Well, Captain Roche. Are you willing to help me?”

He covered his heart with his hand. “As I’m a loyal subject of the king, and a God-fearin’ man, I’ll do my duty.”

Juleah looked at him with a plea. “Then you must see me safely home.”

“I would, if we were closer to it.”

Her eyes flashed. “What difference should the distance make, sir?”

“It makes all the difference in the world, ma’am. For one, we wouldn’t have enough provisions to last the voyage. Secondly, America's shores will be in our sights soon enough with this wind.”

“I do not wish to go there.”

“Let Mistress Dirk explain. Perhaps you’ll change your mind.”

“Are you a pirate, sir, that you’d carry me off like this?”

“Pirate
is too harsh a word, ma’am.”

“How else should I think of you?”

Roche's face stiffened. “You should think of me as the captain of this fair vessel. Stay on my good side, and all will go well. Call me a pirate again, and I may not be apt to help you at all.”

Juleah set her mouth and heaved a breath. “I apologize, Captain Roche. I do not understand what has happened and why I am here.”

“You must ask the fair Judith.” Roche poured another glass of wine and drank it down.

A rap fell upon the door and it drifted open. Judith Dirk hesitated at the threshold, until the seaman who had accompanied her moved her inside.

Now Juleah viewed her with a clearer mind. Streaks of gold ran through Judith Dirk's red tresses, her skin pale and freckled, and her eyes large and of a golden-brown. She stared back at Juleah with an expression that swayed between anger and trepidation.

“Mistress,” Judith cooed like a dove. “You’re feeling better and are up and about. Aye, ’tis ’bout time, and ye have met our bonny Captain Roche.”

Juleah stepped swiftly up to her. “Stop your pretense. Why am I aboard this ship? Why did I find a bottle of sleeping draught on the table? Why was I locked in?”

Judith Dirk pinched her brows. “The medicine was to help you sleep. I kept the door locked for your safety. Ye wouldn’t want any wayward sailor getting any ideas, now would you? And it was your good gentleman who booked us passage. Once his business is concluded in England, he intends to join you. He thought it’d do you good.”

Juleah slapped her palm down on the table. “You are lying.”

Judith Dirk shrugged. “Now why would I do that? What could I gain?”

“Give someone enough money,” Juleah said, “and they’ll do anything.”

Mistress Dirk threw Roche a quick glance and shook her head. “She's not in her right mind, Captain Roche.”

Roche also shrugged.

“I am in my right mind, especially now that I got rid of the potion you were giving me,” Juleah said.

Judith wiggled her mouth. “You mean medicine, miss.”

Juleah shook her head. “Lies. I remember the fire at Ten Width, and that Edward Darden and his mother were there. She took my ring. She forced it from my hand. And in the struggle, I dropped a candle.”

“I don’t know anything about that.” Judith set her mouth and looked away with her eyes closed. She muttered under her breath and glanced over at Captain Roche. “I heard this tale before.”

Juleah took an abrupt step closer. “You must know something.”

Judith stood back with a frown. “Why? I’m a servant.”

“Then explain to me when I first woke, why I was in a strange house.”

“The reason you were set up in different lodgings was never explained to me. I suppose it was due to the fire you speak of.”

“I remember seeing Darden there. Why? He should’ve been the last person to see me after what happened.”

Judith jerked her head upward. “I do not know this man. You may have dreamed you saw him. There was never a man by that name that came to see you.”

Juleah stared back at Judith unconvinced and with a look that caused her to lose her beguiling expression.

“I do not believe you.”

“Here's a letter from your gentleman. It was left to give to you when you were feeling better. I suppose this is the right time.”

Juleah hurried around the table, snatched it from the woman's hand, and tore it open. Her heart thumped to see Seth's handwriting. Words of love and affection penned out on the page could only be his, for he said things only the two of them knew. It was a brief missive, but he told her he had dreams of building their lives together back in Virginia, of raising horses, and having children together. It was dated the day he left for London.

She dropped her hand and tears fell from her eyes. With a heavy sigh, she pushed them aside, and folded the letter.

Judith put her arm around Juleah. “There, now all shall be well.”

“He would not send me on without him.”

“He said it was urgent, he had business to attend to, that he needed to get you away from a dangerous man.”

“Darden,” Juleah whispered.

“Maybe so.”

Juleah's heart lurched within. “What am I to do when we reach land, Judith Dirk?”

“We’ll travel by coach to Virginia. Now won’t that be fine for you to get his house in order before he arrives?”

Juleah stood still and silent. She shrugged out of Judith Dirk's arm and stepped away. She hurried out, back to the cabin. She shut the door and threw herself across the cot. Even if Seth had sent her on this journey, he had not explained it enough and to be without him was unbearable.

The Raven
gave a sharp pitch, and she grabbed the side of the cot. The light in the cabin faded to gray, as the sky filled with heavy, windswept clouds. With a sinking heart she listened to the timbers moan. She closed her eyes and kept them shut.

You are not alone. You are not forsaken
. When she heard the words spoken into her heart, she drifted toward sleep, comforted, as if angels soothed her brow.

I
t was exactly as Pen said. Seth reached the crossroad, where an iron gibbet stood. Suspended by a chain hung an iron cage. Shrouded in a moonlit darkness, it swung and squeaked in the wind. The full moon hovered above it, high, golden, and brilliant as a watchman's torch. Through its light, Seth stared at the decomposing body of a highwayman. Whomever he had been, an awful end was his reward for robbery.

They hanged him, coated his body in tar and placed it in the body-shaped cage made especially for him. Seth could tell the corpse had been there several months and knew it would remain in public view for at least a year, until there was nothing left to see. Then his bones would be scattered. It was a fearful thing for a man, to think he’d have no proper resting place, that his spirit would wander the moors in a purgatory of agony for ages to come.

So it was believed among the common folk of that land. But as for Seth, the man was no longer there. He’d gone on to stand before a merciful God, finally released from the troubles of an earthly life. But what had pushed the man to rob others? Was it a hungry brood of children, or an ailing wife? Whatever
it was, compassion filled Seth and he uttered a prayer while staring at the lifeless, tattered remains of a face.

The hollow eye sockets stared back in horror, and the mouth gaped in a frozen scream of penance. The highwayman's clothes, shredded and torn, stained and rotten along with flesh, rippled in the breeze. Birds had feasted, and even now in the dark under grim moonlight, a crow landed on the post, pecked and plunged its beak through the iron slates until it pulled out a strand of bloodless, gray flesh.

What Seth's eyes beheld caused a wave of sickness to rush through his belly. Jupiter flared his nostrils and reared at the sight. Seth calmed him with a pat of his hand, and with a gentle nudge of his knees he moved on.

Seth passed under the gibbet and remembered he was now considered a lawbreaker. If he could not solve the mysteries that surrounded his life, he wondered if he would meet a similar fate if captured.

He lifted his eyes to the stars and murmured, “Have mercy upon me, O God.”

Exhaustion overwhelmed him, and a mile later he dismounted and drew Jupiter to the side of the road. There he found a shallow stream. From it he splashed water over his face and neck, and then drank. He remounted and galloped along the high road surrounded by endless fields and woodlands.

Once he reached a hillside thick with knee-deep meadow grass, he reined in atop it and gazed into a valley blanketed with fog. From there, he could see the ancient house of Crown Cove bathed in moonlight, with one window that shimmered with the light of candles from within.

Seth drew closer. His heart pounded. Perhaps Juleah slept even now in that upper room, beyond that mullioned window
facing east. Ivy clambered up the walls, spilled over deep window-sills, and concealed the stones beneath with glimmering green.

Again, he reined in his horse and paused to catch his breath and to think. A moment later, he slid off the saddle and walked to the front door. Vague ochre light from a lantern beside it fell over his hand as he pushed it in. A flood of light came from a room at the far end of the hallway. A young woman's laughter followed a man's, but it was not Juleah's.

“You have been a bachelor for too long, Edward,” he heard her say. “You need a woman to guide your house. Where is your mother, by the way?”

“She has quit England for the south of Spain,” Seth heard Darden reply.

“Whatever for?”

“The warmer weather is better for her health.”

“I hear southern Spain has sun all year round. I imagine it would be ideal for one's health. I wish your dear mama well, Edward. Will she be returning soon?”

“No. This is a permanent arrangement.”

Seth's upper lip twitched. How he despised the sound of Darden's voice—so calm, so self-assured.

With a heavy heart, he moved closer to the doorway, and when he stepped inside the room to make his presence known, Darden leapt from his chair with an oath. The woman seated beside him raised her hand to her throat, where a pearl dangled from a gold chain.

“You leave your door unbolted?” Seth asked.

Darden set his teeth. “Braxton.”

“Is he a highwayman?” the woman asked. “He shan’t have my jewels. You must protect me, Edward.” Seth glanced at her. Excitement and lust glowed in her eyes. She was tall and lean, with a head of lush brown curls. Bright vermilion blotches
covered her cheeks, and rice powder dusted her face. A tiny black patch inched near the left corner of her painted mouth. The rich burgundy gown she wore hung low about her bosom and shoulders. He had no doubt of what kind of woman Darden entertained.

“Are those the clothes of a highwayman, sir?” She laughed at him and scanned his person with her wanton eyes. “They are torn, muddied, and stained, giving you the look of a brigand. I had imagined highwaymen dress more finely and masked.”

Seth bowed. “I am no highwayman, ma’am.”

“I do not believe it,” she said. “You will have to get past Captain Darden to take this pearl from my throat.”

Darden shot her a stern glare. “Be quiet, Fanny!”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Shall you have this man ravish me, Edward?”

Seth fixed his eyes in reproof on her fine blue ones. “Be assured, I do not seek worldly riches or
you.”