Island Queen

by Vanessa Riley

  “Such big plans.” She patted my arm. “I’m strong. You need to stop fretting over Edward and me.”

  How could I not? His wheezing was bad again. I almost wanted to consult the Hispaniola neighbors filling Mamaí with stories of healing by their gods or the Obeah doctors of the Caribs for some cure or potion to make him better.

  But who could trust a ghost? The priest at my church would need to pray on my boy good.

  Picking through my mother’s new creations, I studied the patterns she made, the delicate stitches, the weaving flower petals from mudcloth and cotton.

  “You keep giving me such fine fabrics to work with, Dolly. I’ll keep creating.”

  My gaze shifted to my table and the letter from Scotland. “I wish you could make a hundred of these a day. We’d be rich.”

  “I thought we were rich already. You fretting about money?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  She came to me and lifted my chin. “Dolly, what is the matter? What has you fretting?”

  I couldn’t put it to words, this churning inside. I had received my first letter from Cells, the first in two years just to me.

  Frances gurgled and spit and rolled over yawning. I bent and gave her a tickle. She laughed big.

  “Never mind me. Look at that, Mamaí. She can be a performer.”

  I picked up Frances and hummed at my daughter.

  Mamaí brushed my daughter’s wavy hair, her smooth olive skin. “Thomas is back. He’s asked about you.”

  My fingers balled beneath Frances’s pinafore, the sleeveless tunic I fashioned from magazines Mr. King sent. “My sometime solicitor hasn’t stepped across my door. We live in the same place for now.”

  “Maybe he wants to know you’re done mooning over a prince. It was all over Roseau that you’re Mrs. Prince, stepping out with him everywhere.”

  “What?”

  “The prince is young. He can’t quite hold his liquor or his tongue. Talked about his black Doll waiting for him in Dominica. Lizzy and Coxall says it’s all over the Caribbean.”

  My gaze went to Cells’s letter. Could that be what it was about?

  “That’s gossip.”

  “Dolly, are you done with the prince? No man wants to intrude on another’s woman.”

  Mamaí had concerns for the wrong man. Cells was the one who had power over me. He had my Catharina. I bent my head and kissed Frances’s spirals. “What consequence could Prince William have to a solicitor?”

  “Plenty. Thomas owns boats, boats that transport goods over the seas. The prince could set his guns on him. They can take his goods. It happened to your pa during that long seven-year war.”

  “Thomas is frightened for his business? Serves him right for leaving.”

  “Dolly, he’s not afraid of no man, but it’s not worth the trouble if you want a prince and not a pauper.”

  Frances yawned. It was time for her nap. “Thomas is no pauper. He does well.”

  “He doesn’t know what you want.”

  Thomas wasn’t the only one.

  Charlotte came downstairs. “I’ll put my sister down.”

  I handed my feisty Frances over to my good-natured Charlotte. My pretty, tall daughter had grown up fast in Roseau. “Where’s Kitty, girl?”

  “Mama, she and Polk took bowls to the market. You and Grandma, go save the man from his ear being talked off.”

  “Come on, Mamaí. To the Old Market. Then I’m going to get Mr. Bates to help us lease a bigger place.”

  My mother smiled and I followed her out. “Go for the prince, Dolly. He hasn’t abandoned you or lied.”

  I hadn’t thought of Thomas’s leaving as abandoning me. It was just what men in mercantilism did, like Pa.

  My mind drifted to Cells’s unopened letter. Did it have news of Catharina? I remembered her every night in my prayers, every time I kissed Frances and Edward and Charlotte.

  Maybe I was stuck in remembering.

  We walked in silence until we reached Mamaí’s stand.

  At her booth, the noon sun left me blinking. I knocked over her wooden sign. I stooped to get it, and my eyes focused on a pair of men’s boots.

  Fine leather boots that had a jagged edge and a buckle.

  European buckles.

  “Morning, Miss Doll.”

  “New boots, Mr. Thomas?”

  My sometime wandering solicitor stood in front of Mamaí’s stand. “Yes. You like?”

  My lips pressed tight. I slipped to the side, setting my ma’s sign in place and ignoring the handsome fool in his fine coat, his dark brown hair brushed to a shine. No foul powders.

  “I’ll see you later, Mamaí.”

  Then I marched forward. I stomped the cobbles and went in the opposite direction, away from the booth, away from Thomas.

  Dominica 1786: A Knoll

  I walked a good three miles through a grassy knoll right to the Roseau River. The hem of my white skirt now bore an inch or two of mud.

  “Miss Doll, would you mind waiting?”

  “I think I’ve waited enough for you.”

  “Don’t you think you have that wrong? Aren’t I waiting for you?”

  Arms folded, I kept looking at the rushing water, not at Thomas, who was probably laughing at me.

  “You think you might stop. You’re getting all wet . . . in murky water, all drenched in sweat. Glistening.”

  He knew how to tease with his words. I’d always liked that about him, till today. I’d danced with a prince and not succumbed to his courting because of Thomas. Now the prince was gone and my solicitor had returned to Dominica. Knowing Thomas kept his distance laid bare a deep ache. I was a fool, twice over. “Say your business, sir. Then leave me for good.”

  Thomas whistled the tarn hymn I was foolish enough to teach him.

  “Stop singing. The water’s too cold to take a swim, not that I’d float in these petticoats.”

  He inched closer till I felt his breath on my neck.

  “I think you’d float just fine. You’re full of heat. Heat rises.”

  “I’m heated.” I spun from the silver-blue water to his sea-blue eyes. “I can be hot or cold or flames if I want. I get to. You don’t get to tell me what I feel or what I do. I’m not the one that left.”

  His smile widened, becoming almost a grin, with that lip biting. “So you did miss me.”

  Rolling my eyes at him wasn’t enough. His smile should be slapped away.

  I raised my hand, but Thomas caught my fingers and pulled me to his chest. “Well, I missed you, too. Next time I should insist you come with me.”

  His hold tightened. I was off-balance breathing him, hints of tobacco and sage.

  “My business is here, Thomas. My family who needs me is here. I can’t just—”

  He kissed me. It was hard and fast, making me know that he missed me, that I was special to him.

  My feet dangled as he lifted me higher. I locked my arms about his neck to hold on, to not fall. But maybe I had feelings for him—the quiet ones that entrap the heart.

  The breeze scented with sweet Bwa Kwaib swirled the waves. They lapped about us and Thomas held me, kissing me like I was his, like he hadn’t been away a year.

  He eased me to the ground. My boots made a splash.

  “I guess you missed me, Doll?”

  I stepped away, touching my fire-warmed lips. “No, not at all.”

  He beamed and hooked his roaming fingers about the cloth buttons of his coat. “Are you sure?”

  This time I kissed him, keeping his silly mouth fully on mine. His breath made a throaty purr in my ear. “I see,” he said. “I can tell you never thought of me. But I had heard you weren’t lonely.”

  “I hear I’m quite entertaining, Mr. Thomas.”

  “Makes a man think long and hard if he wants competition. Also makes him kick himself that you blossomed while he was away.”

  “You fretting about rumors?”

  “A little. I’d like to think I’m a prince.” H
e straightened his short-cut waistcoat, another change from Europe, that far world from the islands.

  His mouth nipped at my wrist. “I’m a solicitor, a want-to-be merchant, and a part-time sailor. You have ambitions for more. I’m not sure I can give you more.”

  “You should stick around and see if you are enough.”

  “Being in one place is hard when you have dreams, but I keep dreaming of you, thinking of you and me. I said you were in my head. Might be in my heart, too. Doll, girl, I missed you so.”

  “Then you should’ve seen about me. You should’ve been man enough to bring me your dreams and patient enough for me to decide if I want them too.”

  “I’m man enough, make no mistake. I know you’re mad. Doll, I have to know if you’re finally letting me court you?”

  It wasn’t as if he gave me a choice. He kissed me before I could answer and sculpted me like Kitty’s clay, molding me to him. I just didn’t know if I’d become a pot or a bowl or beads.

  That didn’t seem important, not with his embrace awakening feelings, stirring them to a fever. I shut off my doubts and concentrated on Thomas being here and the river lapping, dancing at our feet.

  Dominica 1786: A Key

  Thomas stood at the door to a house near the center of Roseau. It was the third place we’d walked to today.

  “This has to be the last one,” I said. “We’ve been all over the city.”

  “Well, it hasn’t been unpleasant, Doll. I’ve tried to keep you entertained.”

  The man wore his evil grin, his evil and naughty grin.

  He’d taken every moment to touch me, to spin a silver web about my soul and slide it into his pockets. Thomas had figured out the things that made my heart tender—him cooing at Frances, him holding her hand helping her walk. I nearly sobbed watching my Edward lean on his shoulder as Thomas read Shakespeare or other English nonsense.

  My boy hadn’t been feeling too well, and Thomas brought him cheer. There was no need to wait on a mouthy prince when a dedicated solicitor stood at the ready.

  Thomas put a key in the lock. It made a heavy clanking sound then he flung the door open. “This has six rooms. Four upstairs bedrooms and two downstairs. There’s a parlor and dining room to complete the arrangement.”

  “A garden for Mamaí. She needs one, she’d be lost without one.”

  “What do take me for, madame? I’m a helpin han, remember. Of course there’s one.”

  He led me past a burgundy sofa and long dining room table to the back door. “A fenced lot will be perfect. Edward can build castles when he’s feeling better.”

  “Frances might want to, too, Thomas. There’s money to be made in lodgings as well as housekeeping. I’ve been studying King’s magazines.”

  He waggled his finger at me. “No business today. If Frances grows up to be like her mother, she’ll build kingdoms.”

  Thomas sounded proud of me, of how well my business was doing. He was a rare soul. Men didn’t seem to care for competition no matter how friendly.

  “Let’s see more.” He closed the back door and walked me down a hall. “This is the first bedroom on this level.”

  It was a nice room with a large window, but the view was of another town house. “Not too much star counting from here.”

  “This one should be for your mother.” Slow stride, beaming, he went to the end of the hall. “This should be for you.”

  He bowed and waved me forward.

  A magnificent four-poster bed with a canopy draped in white centered the room. Like a virginal bride, it was clean and pure, standing alone, waiting.

  Thomas lit candles that sat in sconces in the corners. He opened a window and the hot air of the evening swept in. He leaned on a door that also led to that magnificent garden. “I can enter here when I visit, if we are to be discreet.”

  He came to me and tugged a scarlet ribbon that clung to his neck. “This key is for this door. I’ll keep it near my heart.”

  I slid my palm up his chest until it rested on his neck, on the ribbon’s knot. “Been making plans for us?”

  “Yes. You told me I should at the river.”

  I tugged the key free and put it in my pocket. “No. I told you to tell me about your plans. That’s not the same.”

  “Well, my plans, if you will consider them, are to be with you forever.”

  “This house is mine to rent, Thomas. Go rent your own.”

  Though I smiled and showed him teeth and everything, I meant it. I wasn’t setting him and me up with a new place but giving my family more room. “This is for the Kirwans, not to make it convenient for you to woo me. Is this it for today?”

  Thomas might’ve cursed under his breath, but that made no difference to me.

  He suckled my counting finger like it was a sow’s rib bone.

  My breath hitched. His antics stopped being funny. His touch had a luxurious feel, like satin to my skin.

  “Let me earn that key to you. Doll, we should be together.”

  “Thomas, stop joking. We . . . We should go back.”

  “Your mother has things well in hand. Charlotte and Kitty will keep Frances busy for a parasol and some lace. Edward wants to captain my sloop. Worthy bargains for a night with you.”

  “Stop.”

  “Doll, what are you afraid of? What’s keeping us apart?”

  “You’re babbling. Thomas, I like this house. When can I sign papers with Mr. Bates? Tomorrow?”

  “I have them here.” He tugged a rolled parchment from his jacket. “I knew this was for you. I know you. I want to know everything. This is for your family. I want your family. I’ve always wanted a large one.”

  The heat in his eyes for me, the sound of love in his voice for my children, warmed my heart, but I had to resist. I moved to the window and studied the carefree Bwa Kwaib, its droopy red petals pointing to the sea. “Men say they want a family. Then things change and they get on boats and leave. It’s safer being friends. I can sign the papers—”

  He kissed me, shutting up my foolishness.

  “I’m Anglican, Dorothy. We can’t marry. But you are Mrs. Thomas to me. I love you. Loved you since that first moment you bounced into my arms.”

  “What? I hadn’t said that I love anyone.”

  “Dorothy, I want you. I’ll make whatever promises you need.” He caressed my cheeks. “I love you.”

  “I don’t want anything that goes away when adventure comes.”

  “Adventure is in my soul, and like you, I have things to prove. If I go, I’ll be back. I’ll woo you all over again. If you felt a tenth of what I do, you know distance and time won’t change that.”

  “Fancy words that still say you’ll leave.”

  “Then what do you want, Doll?”

  The shadows of Thomas being a wanderer like Pa, never staying around when I was in need haunted like a death mask.

  Or was it Cells haunting me? One silly letter came today, a mate for the one I had burned, and I was back to missing him and Catharina, a girl who would never know my love.

  Thomas kissed my neck and slowly undid the ties of my tunic. He exposed my shift and traced the embroidery along my bosom. “Doll, let me be a knight, a knight persuading a queen he’ll slay the dragons that keep us apart.”

  I was lost, not knowing my mind, unable to come up with a reason to resist him.

  “Tell me, Doll.” His hands were on my shoulders, kneading me like dough, readying to be slid into the hearth. I didn’t want to be burnt or formed with a crust so thick love could never warm through.

  “Don’t be silent on this, Doll. Tell me what you want.”

  “I have to own these feelings. I haven’t been vulnerable to a man, not like this, in a long time.”

  “Own it,” Thomas said, “take it.” His hum was in my ear. He planted kisses to my cheek, the hollow of my throat. “Or tell me why we are apart?”

  No word escaped my lips. My story was mine, but I couldn’t turn from his passion.

&n
bsp; Instead, I pushed his jacket to the floor and pressed my mouth to his. He picked me up and carried me to the bed draped in veils, and I readied to christen this house he’d chosen in the way he wanted, the way I needed.

  Just him and me and vows of desire.

  On sheets that were clean and new.

  I let myself love Thomas. I let my whole self be with him and only him.

  I was vulnerable, him on top, me sheltered below, him sliding past my fears, penetrating my soul.

  Two lush moans, his and mine. He said he loved me, before he broke me.

  To the flames, he took me again, swirling molten me, shaping me with whispers, working me with our palms entwined. Light and dark, sun and moon.

  Then nothing but stars.

  I opened my eyes and focused on him, his smooth chest with tufts of tickling hair, the way we fit, glistening and damp.

  I hoped my glass-blown heart was safe in his rugged hands.

  Dominica 1787: A Keeping

  Thomas sat at the desk in my bedchamber. Well, pretty much our bedchamber.

  Like Cells, he was a neat, tidy man except for his stacks. Thomas made piles of his clothes on the floor. His boots lay everywhere. He obviously had never lived in a damp hut or feared trails of ants or creepy-crawlers.

  Still, I liked how straight his back was when he sat in a chair, making his notes, writing up documents. Then there was the smell of his fine cigars, nutmeg and cedar. I loved coming home to it.

  “Doll, did you like Mr. Garraway?”

  The answer was no, but I couldn’t say that, could I? Moving to Thomas, I hugged on his shoulders. “Why, do you like him?”

  “He’s successful. He has connections with merchants in Europe. I do a little work for him, then I’ll get my opportunity. My investors and I will be able to transport straight to the Americas as well as all the Leeward Islands.”

  “I could connect you with Mr. King. He supplies me with goods. I’m sure he can do something for you.”

  He kissed my wrist. “No, Doll. I have a plan.”