Windswept (21 page)

Along two other walls were baskets of miscellaneous goods… bottles of spices and whiskey, medicines, cook pots, lanterns and household supplies. There was nothing Nora hadn’t seen at the auction or in Jacob’s warehouse. And nothing so valuable a man would risk his reputation to steal it from the
Marguerite Gray
. The non perishable goods were probably items Jacob intended to trade in the Bahamas.

She discovered a large wicker trunk filled with bolts of colorful cloth and decided it was for trade also. While admiring the intricate patterns and fabrics, Nora heard voices coming from the harbor. She stuffed the material back in the trunk and closed the lid. Then she went to the closest window and looked out. Men gathered at the entrance to Jimmy Teague’s shouting farewells to patrons inside. Jacob’s crew.

She could still make her escape. The sailors wouldn’t notice her until she was on the dock, and then she’d make up some excuse in case one of them asked why she was there. She looked at the open door of the hatch, but when she took her first step toward it, her foot became tangled in a coil of rope.

“What in blazes…” she mumbled into the near darkness. She tried to kick free but only buried her shoe deeper into the scratchy sisal, until the rope had formed a loop around her ankle. She reached down to loosen the tightening noose when the ship pitched in a gust of wind causing her to lose her balance.

She reached out to grab onto something solid for support. What she found was the corner of a sack of flour. Then everything happened at once. Despite her efforts to remain upright, a sudden dizziness in her head and the swaying of the ship sent her sprawling into a corner of the hold. She hit her head and back on the wall. Pain sliced up her spine and into her temples as her breath whooshed from her lungs.

The darkness around her dazzled with stars. She struggled to keep her eyelids from descending over her aching eyes. In one horrifying instant she glimpsed the sack of flour she had been gripping for dear life a moment before. It had become a living, animated thing. It moved on its perch above her head, rolled once, and tumbled. Three X’s danced among the glittering stars on a dusty burlap background. It was all Nora remembered before the hold of the
Dover Cloud
went totally black.

Chapter Thirteen

A cumbersome weight pressed down on Nora from her neck to her knees. She pushed at it with a hand pinned at her side and wiggled her torso, but the effort to free herself was too great. Besides, it wasn’t all that uncomfortable. It resembled a heavy blanket, cloaking her in darkness and warmth.

Her head ached, so much that she didn’t even attempt to open her eyes. The darkness behind her eyelids was kind and peaceful. It blocked out the pain that light would surely have intensified. Too, she sensed it was nighttime any way, just as a blind person feels an instinctive connection with the earth’s rotation. The world around her had settled in for the night and hummed to a gentle, steady vibration far removed from the day’s activities.

She knew that somewhere above her, in the heavens, the moon turned leaves to silver and water to cobalt. A dark wind rattled sashes and ruffled curtains. Nora half smiled. She wouldn’t have to battle with the sun till morning.

She would let herself drift back to sleep.
Drift
, what a lovely image, a one-word lullaby really. She was drifting now, swaying with a soft, caressing motion, like a baby, safe and secure in a cotton-cloud cradle, drifting across the sky. Nora sighed, a mellow, kitten-like sound and slipped away from a tenuous semi-consciousness.

Judge Seabrook sent his housekeeper, Portia, to summon a doctor to his home Monday evening when he ran out of excuses for why Nora hadn’t come home. His wife was near hysteria, and in the few hours since noon she had conjured up every conceivable vile, insidious image of what had happened to her daughter.

While Sidonia cried and moaned and begged God to deliver her daughter unharmed, Thurston organized an all-out effort to comb the island. Theo Hadley divided the island into manageable quadrants, and the Seabrook house became the headquarters for searchers to report their findings hourly. And with each negative result, Sidonia suffered more, cried louder and condemned her miserable fate more vociferously.

Once the doctor administered a sedative, Thurston gathered the damp cloths Portia had applied to her mistress’s brow that evening, took them and an assortment of half empty tea cups to the service kitchen, and persuaded his wife to rise from the parlor sofa and come to bed. She didn’t protest when he removed her clothing, slipped her nightgown over her head and settled her against a mound of pillows.

She stared at him with glassy eyes when he tucked a sheet under her chin. “I must brush my hair, Thurston,” she said. They were the first words she’d spoken during the entire preparation process. “Do bring me my brush and mirror.”

“Of course, pet.” Grateful for any semblance of normalcy from his wife, he quickly retrieved the requested items from her vanity.

With rote motion she skimmed bristles down her long hair. “Don’t leave me, Thurston,” she pleaded. “You will stay won’t you?”

“Yes, love, of course. I must speak with Fanny for a moment, and then I’ll be back. She indicated to me just now that she had something important to tell me.”

“About Eleanor?”

“I don’t know, dearest. Perhaps.” He kissed her forehead, patted her hand and went to the door. “Rest now, Sid,” he said as he went out.

Fanny waited for him at the top of the stairs. Thurston noticed immediately that her features lacked their usual confidence. She looked almost cowed, like a beaten puppy. The woman before him bore little resemblance to the saucy Fanny Cosette. “What is it?” he asked impatiently. “Do you know where Nora is?”

“Oh, Thurston,” she moaned. “I don’t know for certain, but I have an idea.”

He took her elbow and led her down the stairs and into his study. “All right Fanny, sit down and tell me what you know.”

She wrung her hands at her waist. “If it’s all the same to you, Thurston, I think I’ll stand. It makes for a faster escape.” Her attempt at a small grin fell far short of its goal. “This morning at the harbor…”

Thurston couldn’t believe what Fanny told him. He didn’t want to believe it. His only child, his precious daughter was on board the
Dover Cloud
sailing for God knew where with the most disreputable man on the island. “My worst fears have been realized,” he said. “She’s in the clutches of that brute. He’s snatched her away from us in a cruel attempt at revenge.”

“It’s not like that, Thurston,” Fanny responded. “Nora went on board the
Dover Cloud
of her own volition. She was under no duress to do so.”

Thurston pounded his fist on his desk. “Are you saying that Nora went on Proctor’s ship without being forced?”

“Yes, she did, but only to help you. She thought she might find something to connect the captain with the wreck of the
Marguerite Gray
.”

“And you let her go?”

“I didn’t want to, but she insisted. She said she would only stay on board a few minutes, that she knew what she was doing.” Fanny’s words dissolved into quivers. “Oh, Thurston, Nora said she’d see me for lunch!”

This story was beyond comprehension, beyond what Thurston, as a rational man, could accept. Fanny was talking about his sensible daughter! “Why would she do such a thing? I’ve warned her about that man. I made her promise never to go near him.”

“I’m afraid that was a promise she took rather lightly.”

A vision of his daughter on the
Dover Cloud
, a prisoner in the hands of Jacob Proctor and his foul crew, flashed before Thurston’s eyes. What little supper he’d eaten threatened to revolt in his churning stomach. He sat at his desk and hung his head. “No matter how it came to pass, he’s got her, Fanny. My poor, foolish child. What will become of you?”

Self recrimination slammed into Thurston’s roiling abdomen. What did I do wrong? he questioned. I should have watched my daughter’s activities more closely since we came to this wicked island. Then, another thought occurred to him, one which eased his own guilt while shifting blame to another. He slowly raised his head and leveled a threatening glare at his wife’s cousin. “Fanny, you’ve known this since this morning?”

She emitted a tiny squeak and nodded.

He stood and came around his desk to stand before her. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have set out after her. Maybe caught the bastard before he put so many miles between us.”

Fanny backed away. “I should have told you, Thurston, I know that now, but I thought Nora would come back. She seemed so sure of herself. I thought perhaps she and Proctor had just sailed out on a brief lover’s cruise.”

“A
lover’s
cruise?” Thurston’s blood pressure shot higher until he felt its flush in his cheeks. “Are you saying those two have…”

“No, no, nothing like that, though it wasn’t far from Nora’s mind, but no, Thurston. Nora is as pure as…”

“Then what are you jabbering woman? Why the hell didn’t you come to me with this news?”

Fanny backed into the closed door and flattened against it. “Nora didn’t want me to tell. And I thought you would kill Proctor. I thought you would be angry with Nora. I thought you might very well kill me.”

“I’m damned tempted, Fanny! What am I supposed to tell Sidonia? That Nora ran off with this man?”

“No, I don’t think Nora would run off with him.”

“Then what
do
you think?”

Thurston found himself dealing with the second hysterical woman of the evening. Fanny’s tears ran down her cheeks and tested the limits of his patience.

“I don’t know,” she cried. “She went on his boat and she didn’t come home. I don’t know why. I don’t think he’ll hurt her. I think he cares for her actually. You can tell Sid that at least.”

Thurston took three long determined strides which brought him within inches of Fanny’s quivering form. She covered her face with her hands.

“Get out of my way, woman. I’m not going to hit you. I’m going upstairs to my wife.” He waggled a finger in Fanny’s face. “But let me tell you this. You’ve handled this badly. Very badly.” Shaking his head, he left the study.

“Kidnapped! Eleanor has been kidnapped!” Sidonia Seabrook plunged her face into a crocheted pillow and moaned into goose down. “Oh, my poor innocent darling. Who knows what horrors that man will inflict upon her? What are we going to do?”

Thurston sat on the bed next to his wife and took her hand. “Now, Sid, don’t get carried away until we know all the facts. I never used the word
kidnapped
.”

She raised moist, red eyes to him. “Well, what other explanation could there be?”

Drawing a deep breath, Thurston prepared to say the very thing he knew would only increase his wife’s distress. “My dear, Fanny seems to believe that Nora went on board Captain Proctor’s ship of her own accord, born of some misguided attempt to ferret out evidence of his misdeeds in the matter of the
Marguerite Gray
.”

“What nonsense, Thurston.” Moments passed while Sidonia waited for some sign that her husband agreed with her, and when it was not forthcoming, she tried to pin him into submission with her most condemning look. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

“I have to consider it, Sid. Nora told Fanny that’s what she intended to do, and Fanny saw her board the
Dover Cloud
.”

The thought that her daughter could do something so brazen was unacceptable to Sidonia. Thurston saw her blatant denial of Fanny’s account in the pout that pulled down the corners of her mouth. He knew exactly what she was thinking. She was sifting the details of Fanny’s story through her own system of values until she had an interpretation of the event that supported her own beliefs.

“Perhaps what Fanny saw was not really what happened,” she offered. “Perhaps that vile man coaxed Eleanor on board, rendered her senseless and now plans to use her as his concubine. Oh, Thurston, think of it!”

A persistent, nagging logic wouldn’t let Thurston condone this version of what happened. Jacob Proctor may be guilty of all manner of activities that lined his pockets, but Thurston truly could not accept that the man was a totally unprincipled lecher. He’d seen no evidence that the captain’s lack of ethics extended to such base immorality.

He soothed his wife’s fears with a calm voice. “No, Sid. You must not think such things. If Nora is on the
Dover Cloud
, and there is a strong possibility of that, then we must consider that there is a logical explanation for how it happened.” When Sid started to protest, Thurston silenced her with a raised hand. “Besides, Fanny says Proctor wouldn’t hurt her. She’s quite certain of it in fact.”

“Fanny? How would she know that?”

Thurston grinned. “Really, Sid. Proctor is a man, and your cousin is, well…Fanny. I, for one, wouldn’t question her expertise in this subject area.”

He was rewarded with a concessionary smile. “Maybe you’re right. But we must do something, Thurston. We can’t just let this situation continue…”

“At first light tomorrow, love, I’ll find out where Proctor has gone. That’s only a few hours from now, and if I discover that he’ll be gone for some time, I’ll send someone after him or follow him myself.” He stood up and pressed the covers around his wife. “We’ll get our Eleanor back, Sid. Safe and sound, I give you my word.”