Fortune's Bride

by French, Judith E.

  A few childless women in the colony had annulments and went on to marry again. Of course, their reputations were always slightly tarnished, and they were hardly ever received by the best families. That had never seemed an obstacle to Caroline. Her wealth and position were such that she was above censure by ordinary people.

  The coming child would change her marriage of convenience to Garrett Faulkner to a real union that only death could sever. And no fear of what he would say could dim her secret, fierce joy that she would always have a part of him.

  “Watch your step,” Garrett said, bringing her back from her reverie to the narrow stone ledge clinging to the rock wall. “It’s slippery here.”

  He held the lantern in one hand and offered her his other. The only way to traverse the path along the lake was sideways, with your back against the wall. That meant the bag of artifacts had to be swung around to the front, throwing you off balance.

  “Steady,” he coaxed. “One step at a time. Keep pressed against the wall. Mind the water here.”

  The lantern swung to and fro; the yellow-white light reflected off the pool and ceiling. Caroline found the motion distressing. She swallowed as perspiration broke out on her forehead and concentrated on putting each foot down with care.

  It was Garrett who slipped. He let go of her hand and swore an oath as he fell into the icy water with a splash. At the same instant, the lantern went sailing through the air, hit the surface of the lake, and plunged the chamber into total darkness.

  “Garrett!” she screamed. She froze, molding her body to the wall until she felt the imprint of the stone. She heard him gasp as he came up. “Garrett?”

  “I’m all right,” he said. She heard more thrashing in the water, then his hand touched her foot. “Don’t move,” he ordered her.

  “I can’t,” she said. She was glad she hadn’t eaten anything that morning. As it was, her stomach threatened to betray her. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths. “Drop the pack,” she suggested. “You’ll never get back up on the ledge with that weighing you down.”

  “Hell,” he muttered. “I’ll never get back up anyway.” He groaned. “This water is freezing.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  His teeth were chattering. “Stay where you are,” he said. “I’m going to make my way along the wall to the far side and go for another lantern. Don’t try to walk the ledge in the dark. Wait for me.”

  “Let go of the bag,” she urged him.

  “It would be too hard to get it back. I don’t know how deep this damned lake is.”

  “Garrett—listen to reason. You—”

  “Stay where you are, woman. I’ll come back for you.”

  She held her breath as she heard him moving away. The sound of his movement through the water grew fainter and fainter until she was left in total silence.

  Seconds dragged into minutes. Caroline fought to control her faintness, knowing that if she slipped into the water, she might not have the strength to swim to safety. Wondering if Garrett was alive . . .

  She could taste the acrid fear on her tongue, feel the throb of her blood pulsing through her veins. And then, when her despair was greatest, she heard an oddly accented woman’s voice beside her and felt a warm hand take hers.

  “What’s wrong, lass? Lose your nerve? Any Cornwall lad of six could walk this path. Where’s your pluck?”

  Caroline’s senses reeled. It was the voice she’d heard before on the beach when she’d seen the strange little boat. Her mind was playing tricks on her.

  The lean fingers tightened. “There’s a fine broth of a man you’ve chosen, though he’s not so tall or broad as my Jamie. He needs ye, an’ you’re standin’ here like ye had all the time in the world.”

  “I can’t,” Caroline said. “I can’t walk the ledge without a light.”

  “Stuff and nonsense! Course ye can. Hold my hand. I’ll help ye. ’Tis easy.”

  “Garrett needs me?” Caroline’s muscles were locked. She knew she couldn’t move them if she wanted to.

  “Aye.”

  “All right.” Caroline swallowed and took one step.

  “There ye go. Easy as paint on a harlot.”

  “I can’t see.”

  “Look with your head, not your eyes. Eyes can be tricked.” The Cornwall tang was thick in the woman’s speech, but Caroline could understand every word.

  “Are you . . .” She tried to swallow again, but her mouth was too dry. “Are you Lacy Bennett?”

  Laughter. Merry as fresh-popped corn.

  “Did Kutii send you?” Caroline asked. The hand was warm and alive—as real as any hand she’d ever clasped. “Are you my great-great-grandmother?”

  “Ye mind that land, girl. Love it. Stand firm for it, and teach that boy ye carry to do the same. Land not worth sheddin’ blood for isn’t worth havin’.”

  Caroline took another step.

  “You’ve not seen a black cat around, have ye? A one-eared rascal, missin’ part of his hair?”

  “Harry?”

  “Oh, so ye have seen him. Damned cat. Can’t keep track of him. Came with us on the Silkie, ye know—all the way from London Town. Fond o’him, I be.”

  Another step. Onto a wide, solid surface. Startled, Caroline felt around her in the darkness, then realized that no one was holding her hand. “Lacy?” she called. “Grandmother Lacy?”

  Her voice echoed through the passageways. Lacy . . . Lacy . . . Lacy. Grandmother Lacy . . . Grandmother Lacy . . . Grandmother . . .

  Caroline dropped to her knees, shrugged off the pack, and began to feel the cave floor. After a few seconds, she found the cord Garrett had strung, got to her feet, and began to follow it.

  She hadn’t gone a dozen feet when she tripped over something in her path and fell headlong over Garrett’s cold, wet body.

  Chapter 21

  “Garrett!” Caroline began to shake him. He was soaked to the bone and his skin was icy to her touch. “Garrett!” He groaned, and she lifted his head into her lap. “Garrett, wake up,” she said urgently. “You have to wake up.” His hair had come loose from its queue and hung around his face and neck like wet silk.

  A violent shiver racked his body. Grabbing his arm, she rolled him over onto his stomach and pressed against his back hard. He coughed and choked up water. “What are you doing to me?” he gasped weakly.

  “Get up,” she pleaded with him. It was pitch black. She couldn’t see him; she could only feel his unnaturally cold skin. She knew she couldn’t drag him far, and it was still a long way to the cave entrance where Noah and Amanda waited. “You have to move or you’ll freeze,” she said. Between here and the surface lay the tight fissure of rock that could only be traversed standing upright with your back against the wall. It would be impossible to carry an unconscious man through that slender crack in solid limestone. “Please,” she begged. “You have to get up and walk.”

  Garrett choked again, and his teeth began to chatter. “I’ll be all right,” he said. His voice was a strained whisper. “Just leave me alone.”

  Desperate, she yanked a handful of his hair and slapped his face. “Get up, I said!”

  Gasping, he pushed himself up on his hand and knees, and swore at her.

  “I said, get up!” she repeated, punching his arm with her fist. “Put your arm around me and walk!” She’d lost the cord that showed the path out—she’d even lost all sense of time. All she could think of was reaching the warm sunshine above.

  He staggered to his feet, and she fumbled with the heavy bag around his waist. But the ties were wet, the knots stretched tight. She couldn’t unfasten them. Instead, she reached into the bag and removed the gold and silver, one piece at a time, and dropped them to the floor. When the bag was empty, she wedged her shoulder under his arm and began to help him walk. She hadn’t gone two feet before she struck something hard. “Ouch!” she cried.

  Feeling with her free hand, she found a stalagmite growing out of the cave floor, and realized they mu
st still be in the small chamber near the pool. And if she was there, then she needed to keep close to the wall to take the correct tunnel leading out of the chamber. But which wall?

  Garrett groaned again and swayed. She was afraid that if he fell, she wouldn’t get him up again. He was so cold. How could anyone be so cold and still be alive? “Your blood must have ice crystals in it,” she said.

  “What?” he asked drunkenly

  “Keep walking,” she ordered. She tried to remember the correct sequence of inclines and openings ahead of her. Right entrance going in, she mused. Would that be left coming out . . . or . . . It was no use. She was too frightened to use logic. She’d have to rely on her instinct.

  “Just let me rest awhile,” Garrett said.

  “No! We’re going to walk out of here.” Sounding braver than she felt, she took one step and then another. Please, Kutii, she whispered inwardly. We could use some of your ghost lights now. But the cave ahead of her still loomed as dark as the devil’s soul. She closed her eyes. Somehow, the blackness wasn’t as overwhelming if she didn’t have to stare into it.

  Her right hand struck a solid wall. “We’re all right,” she soothed Garrett. “Keep walking. Just a little ways this way, then . . .” She remembered that the passageway was low. “Duck your head.”

  The floor began to rise steeply. The incline, she thought. I remember the incline. His weight made the climb difficult, but it seemed to her that Garrett was gaining strength. He’ll have to, she cried silently. I’ll never get him through the narrows unless he can walk on his own power.

  Perspiration beaded her forehead. Turn, step. How long? she wondered. Garrett didn’t ask if she knew where they were going, and that frightened her even more. The tons of rock and earth above them seemed to press down on her like a great tomb.

  “That’s right, keep going. You’re doing fine,” she told Garrett.

  The compressed passage was a nightmare. They crept through it an inch at a time, while demons of doubt danced at the back of Caroline’s mind, crying, What if you took the wrong turn? What if you’re leading him deeper into the mountain instead of out?

  When she opened her eyes and saw the patch of sunlight ahead, she shouted for joy. “Look,” she said. “Look there!”

  Garrett shook off her arm and squatted down to catch his breath. “I’m all right,” he said. “I can walk on my own.” He was still shaking, but the walking had gotten his blood moving. He was able to make the distance to the ladder and climb it on his own.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Noah demanded as Garrett set foot on the grass. “Been swimming?” He began to strip off Garrett’s shirt.

  “Something like that,” Caroline said. She was almost as wet as Garrett, but the hot sun on her bare arms and face soon warmed her.

  Garrett sat on a rock while Amanda used her apron to dry his back and hair. Noah got the bag unfastened and threw it aside. As it struck the rock, Caroline heard a thud. She retrieved the sack and turned it inside out. A gold Ilama tumbled into her hand—the same exquisite statute that Kutii had shown her earlier.

  “Oh,” Amanda said. “That’s beautiful.”

  Caroline held the tiny llama up so that the sun reflected off it. “This piece I’m keeping for luck,” she said, and tucked it into her gown pocket.

  “I was about to send Noah down after you,” Amanda said, looking from Caroline to Garrett.

  “He fell off the ledge,” Caroline explained. “And he was too stubborn to let go of the gold he was carrying. He nearly drowned.”

  “I didn’t ‘nearly drown,’ ” Garrett protested. He still had the shakes and his face was pale, but Caroline knew he was all right.

  “I should have come down,” Noah said.

  “No,” Garrett answered. “No sense to it. You’re too big. You’d never fit through the narrow crevice.”

  And no one could have carried you out, Caroline thought. “You could have died down there,” she said. “It’s too dangerous. Let’s take what we have and leave the rest.”

  Garrett shook his head. “No, two more trips will do it. One to bring back what we only got part of the way out, and another to get what’s left in the treasure chamber.”

  “I don’t want to go down there again,” she said, looking around her at the vivid greens of the grass and trees, the blue of the sky, and the white of fleecy clouds.”

  “Then stay here,” Garrett said stubbornly. “But I’m going. Too much depends on—”

  “I’m not letting you go down there alone,” she said.

  “Wait until tomorrow, at least,” Amanda suggested. “You both look like you could use something to eat.”

  Garrett shook his head. “I won’t go back along the lake, but I’m bringing out what we dropped.” He threw Caroline a challenging glance. “Coming or not?”

  He lit the spare lantern and started down the ladder. She shrugged and followed him. “This time, I’m not letting go of the cord,” she said.

  “You worry too much, woman,” Garrett replied. And his words echoed down the long corridors and raised the hairs at the back of her neck.

  On the way back to the house, Noah told Garrett and Caroline that Amanda had agreed to marry him, and that they both wanted to stay in the Caribbean.

  “But you can’t,” Caroline said. She was tired and dirty and wanted nothing more than to bathe and crawl between clean sheets. She and Garrett had made the return trip to the chamber beside the underground lake without incident. There they’d found Caroline’s pack and the pieces she’d emptied from Garrett’s bag, and brought them back to the surface. Garrett had agreed to wait until the following day to make the final trip. “If you stay here,” she continued, “Jeremy won’t grow up on Fortune’s Gift. It’s his right.”

  “It’s his right to grow up where I want him to,” Amanda corrected her. “Noah thinks this will be a better place for all of us. Jeremy needs a father.”

  “You haven’t said anything about love,” Caroline protested. “Reed—”

  “If anyone can free Reed, you and Garrett can do it,” Amanda said. She clasped Noah’s arm. “I do love Noah. He’s convinced me that we belong together.”

  “We’ll miss you,” Garrett said. “There’s no man I’d rather have serve beside me on the deck of a fighting ship.”

  Noah put a big arm around Amanda’s shoulders. “From now on, the only wars I’m going to fight are my own. I’ll help ye find a ship, like I promised, but I like it here.”

  “I’ll give you Arawak as a wedding gift,” Caroline said. “Amanda’s due a dowry.”

  “I want no handouts,” her sister said.

  “We’d like Arawak fine,” Noah replied with a grin. “I could build me a new shipyard right in the cove, if you’d let us have a few acres to go with the house.”

  “No,” Caroline said. “I mean I’ll give you the island. It’s the least—”

  “Not for Jeremy’s sake,” Amanda said sharply. “I won’t let you—”

  “For your sake,” Caroline corrected her. “For Papa and Mama. You are my sister—you’ll always be my sister, even if a little ocean divides us.”

  Amanda’s eyes gleamed with liquid. “Thank you,” she said simply.

  “And I’ll give you enough money to start your shipyard,” Garrett said.

  “You’ll loan me enough,” Noah said gruffly. “I’ll pay back every shilling.”

  “Only if I can be best man at the wedding,” Garrett agreed.

  “Done.”

  Then Jeremy came toddling around the corner of the house with Pilar in hot pursuit. “He walks,” she cried excitedly. “Little man walks.”

  Noah caught the baby and swung him high over his head, to Jeremy’s delight. He squealed and kicked his bare feet. “My first son,” Noah declared. Then he winked at Amanda. “But he’ll only be the first of many.”

  “Not too many,” Amanda replied primly, “or you’ll find yourself sleeping on the beach.”

  Even Pilar a
nd the baby joined in the following laughter. And Caroline’s distress at the thought of parting from her sister and Jeremy was eased by the happiness that beamed from Amanda’s round face.

  Supper was hot conch soup, cold pork, fruit, and hot bread. Caroline ate a little of the soup and nibbled at a biscuit. She didn’t taste her wine. Her warm bath had made her sleepy. All she wanted now was to go to bed. When she wished Amanda and Noah all the best and left the table, Garrett followed her into the entrance hall.

  “Thank you for what you did today,” he said.

  “It was nothing,” she answered stiffly. “As you said, you would have gotten out without my help.”

  “Probably,” he said, “but maybe not. I was careless, and it could have gotten us both killed. You used your head and didn’t panic.” He rubbed his cheek. “You’ve got a hard right for a woman.”

  “I didn’t punch you, I slapped you.”

  “Admit it. You enjoyed it,” he teased.

  “It’s not funny, Garrett.”

  “No, I suppose it isn’t.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips. “I want you to come back to our room.” He turned her palm over and brushed his lips against the pulse at her wrist.

  “No.” The touch of his lips made shivers run up and down her spine. God, but she wanted him to want her! Not just for a night—but forever.

  “I won’t touch you, if you don’t want me to. You have my word of honor on it. I miss you, Caroline. It’s lonely without you.”

  Her throat tightened, and her bones felt like jelly. I’m carrying our child, she wanted to tell him. I’m pregnant, and I’m glad of it. But she didn’t. She only shook her head. “It’s best if we leave things as they are,” she said. “You’ll get your boat, and I’ll get my brother.”