“The child?” The captain spoke in Swahili. “The lady wanted to make sure she was not hurt at the river.”
The woman clapped her palms together and dipped her knees again, still not meeting their gazes. “The child sleeps peacefully now. She suffered only some scrapes and fear.”
RyAnne’s heart twisted in pain. She met the captain’s gaze. “I did not mean to frighten or hurt her.”
He gave a quick nod of understanding, then spoke to the woman again. “The lady did not wish to hurt the child. She was trying to save her life.”
The woman did look up then. She met both of their gazes with a wide one of her own. “Everyone knows what a brave thing the lady did for the child. It would have brought much distress on us all if Moyo had died.” She jutted her chin toward RyAnne. “She is mungu wa mamba to be able to survive the attack of the beast without a scratch.”
Amusement tugged at RyAnne’s lips. She was no god of the crocodile! She opened her mouth to set the woman straight, but the captain took her elbow, squeezing firmly to silence her.
He spoke calmly to the woman but loud enough, RyAnne noted, for the men around the fire to hear. “The lady is not a god of the crocodile, but serves the One who is.”
RyAnne gave a start at that. Did she? Serve God? She’d always seen herself as more of an addendum. Yes, she believed in God, but He didn’t really need her help with anything, did He? He was God, after all. A God who had allowed Papa’s sin against his slave to be conceived in the form of herself.
A whisper of memory prickled her skin. Whom shall I send, child? She wrapped her arms about herself and rubbed at the chill nipping her shoulders.
The native woman didn’t look convinced by the captain’s declaration, and a rumble of disagreement made the rounds of the men.
Captain Dawson stepped back. “We are happy to hear the child, Moyo, is well. We will let her sleep. In the morning the lady doctor would like to look at her scratches. Will you bring her down to the main house when she wakes, please?”
The woman dipped her head and knees in acknowledgement.
“Thank you.” Trent touched RyAnne’s shoulder, leading her away before she could form a coherent rebuttal to the woman’s assessment of her.
They took the path back to the main house in silence. God of the crocodile? She grimaced. How did she get herself into these predicaments? If only Papa would agree to go back home. Within a fortnight she could be resting in her own bed, planning how she would sneak out to spend a little time with Valah and Halamme. She could forget her questions about God and whether He cared even a whit for anyone on this earth. She would talk to Papa again in the morning. Maybe now that he’d seen the toll travel was taking on him, he’d be more willing to return for rest.
When they reached the house, it was dinnertime, but RyAnne simply couldn’t face sitting through a meal—especially not sitting across from Khalifa—after all she’d been through on this day. Exhaustion consumed her, leaching every ounce of her strength.
She paused on the veranda outside her door. “Captain, will you please offer my excuses at dinner? I’m afraid I simply must rest.”
“I think that a good idea, Miss Hunter. I hope for us to be on our way inland tomorrow evening.”
“Tomorrow!? That will be quite impossible, Captain. The slave woman is going to need more care than what I’ve given her.”
He sighed and folded his arms. And after a long moment, he gave a curt nod. “The day after tomorrow then, but not a moment later. We need to be on our way, or we are going to be caught in the worst of the rainy season as we travel.”
She gritted her teeth. The woman would need many more days of care than that, but for now, she would concede and take up the battle later. “Thank you, Captain.”
His gaze skimmed her and lingered near her hem, and it was only as she glanced down to see what had caught his attention that she noted the large section missing from the front of her muddied skirt and remembered the crocodile tugging her feet out from under her.
A shudder coursed through her, and she wrapped her arms about herself. “You came at just the right moment today, Captain. If you hadn’t…”
One corner of his mouth ticked up. “Saving you is beginning to be a full-time occupation.”
Was that derision in his tone? She spun away lest he see the hurt his barbed wit had ignited. It was only due to the exhaustion, surely.
He caught her hand and gently tugged her back around to face him. A gleam of indiscernible emotion shimmered in his expression. His voice was low and gravelly when he spoke. “An occupation I find I am less and less loathe to perform.” His thumb skimmed a warm trail across her wrist.
She held her breath and searched his face. Surely he didn’t mean… She swallowed.
He took a step nearer and leaned toward her. He seemed ready to say something, but after only a moment, he dropped her hand and eased away, pressing his lips together and tucking his hands behind his back.
He looked down the length of the portico toward the main doors to the house. “I’ll have Kako send someone with hot water for a bath and a tray of dinner, Miss Hunter.”
She fumbled for the cool metal of her doorknob in the darkness behind her. “Thank you, Captain.”
And with that she left the rogue standing alone on the veranda.
RyAnne woke early the next morning as the first rays of golden light brushed the ocean horizon. She dressed quickly and hurried down the veranda toward the little room where her patient rested.
She’d risen at midnight to check on her and had given her a clean gown, water, and some opium for pain, but now she worried that she should have checked on her another time between then and now. It had to be nearing the five o’clock hour! In her exhaustion she’d slept right through and had only awoken a moment ago.
She turned the knob and swept into the room. The woman was not there! She froze and searched the space. Everything was as she’d left it the night before…everything but the empty bed.
She lifted her skirts and stepped back out onto the veranda. Kako was just about to enter the doors to the main house. “Kako? Where is the patient?” She tipped her head to the open door behind her.
Kako pressed his lips together and looked everywhere but at her.
Dread tugged at her. “What happened?”
“Her owner has taken her. I told you it was pointless to try and save her.” His Swahili was clipped with irritation.
“Taken her? She needs rest. Where has Khalifa taken her?”
His gaze skimmed toward the river, but he made no reply.
Her heart dropped, and horror washed over her. “He wouldn’t!” She grabbed two handfuls of skirt and ran toward the Rovuma. “Get Captain Dawson and tell him to meet me at the river! Hurry!”
She leapt down the portico stairs and raced across the garden and up the path on the other side. By the time she reached the small strip of sand by the river, she was out of breath, but the sight that greeted her would have taken the strength from her legs even if she wasn’t.
Pebbles bit into the thin flesh of her knees, but she barely noticed as she took in the horrific scene before her.
The slave woman had been stripped of the soft gown RyAnne had clothed her in the night before. The bandage around her leg had been removed, and she lay partially in the lapping water of the river’s edge. She was crying, begging for her life and trying to scoot herself out of the water, but in her weakened condition her attempts were feeble.
And off to one side, offering no help whatsoever, Ali Khalifa sat on the low hill, chewing on a stem of grass and watching the sun glint off the rippling water.
RyAnne lurched to her feet and scrambled forward. “The crocodiles could return to finish her off at any moment. What are you thinking?”
Khalifa raked her with a derisive smirk. “She is no good to me without two working legs. You should have let her die.”
A sick stillness came over her. “I should have let her—” Forget t
alking to the man. Had everyone on this godforsaken continent gone utterly and completely mad? She grabbed the woman’s arms and tugged her back from the brown water.
She cried out in pain, but RyAnne dared not stop. They were too close to the muddy water that would conceal a croc until it was right on top of them. “I’m sorry. We need to get you away from the wat—”
“Hands off!” Khalifa leapt to his feet, jerked her grip loose from the woman’s arms, and shoved her back, stepping between them. “She’s my slave, and I will do with her what I want!”
The slave woman cried out and clawed her way a few inches further from the river’s edge.
RyAnne gaped at him. “She is a human being. Not a cow to be sacrificed at your whim!”
Khalifa shook his head. “You are wrong, madam. She’s black. The spawn of cursed Cain. No more human than a cow, nor is anyone with the vile blood of Cain running in their veins.”
A chill raced down her spine. What would a man like this do if he discovered she herself was one of “Cain’s spawn”? She took a breath and prayed her words would penetrate. “Only days ago at the Harcourt ball, you claimed we needed to rescue the natives from the dark influences of this continent. How are your actions those of the enlightened?”
“Ludlow held such a view. But if you think back, you’ll recall it was never I who said such, Miss Hunter.” His gaze slipped leisurely down the length of her, and a hint of lechery touched his expression.
Revulsion crawled over her, and she took a step back. Her mind scrabbled for something that might change his mind about the slave woman. “She is the mother of your child, is she not?”
Something seemed to still inside him. He swallowed and looked down, but then his chin lifted, and a glint of madness darkened his eyes. “Both are dead to me.”
RyAnne’s jaw dropped. Unable to comprehend a man so callous to human life, words failed her.
Trent sprinted toward the river, still strapping his pistol around his waist. Kako had been most unclear about what he would find—only that RyAnne needed his help.
Garrett panted, fast on his heels.
When he crested the little knoll, it only took him a moment to assess the situation.
Khalifa shoving RyAnne back, her chin tipping up like a lioness backed into a corner. The naked slave woman trying to pull herself farther from the water. Ali’s hand sweeping toward the pistol tucked into the back of his pants.
There was only one way this ended without bloodshed. Only one language would reach a man like Ali Khalifa.
Trent motioned Garrett to stay hidden off to one side. He leapt from the little embankment and stepped between Khalifa and RyAnne, holding out his right hand to the surprised man even as he swept the exasperating Miss Hunter behind his back with his other arm.
Ali shook his hand out of reflex, and Trent hung on to it, pumping it like a madman, knowing if he let it go the man might reach for his gun again. “Khalifa! I’m so glad Miss Hunter found you.”
Behind him he felt RyAnne lean her forehead into his back. And with his hand that still rested at the small of her back, he could feel she was trembling all over.
He gritted his teeth and forced himself to smile at the man he’d rather beat to a pulp.
Khalifa looked puzzled. “Yes?”
“Yes, you see, I’d like to buy this slave woman from you. Both she and her child, actually.”
“What?” The man’s face scrunched into a mask of incomprehension. He swept a gesture toward the woman sobbing at their feet. “A one-legged invalid?” His hand swept toward the village huts. “And a child too young to work? Why?”
Trent pushed out his bottom lip and gave a little shrug. “The galley on our ship will be small. She can do most of the cooking she will need to do from a chair, and in time she will learn to navigate with only one leg. Until then, the girl can do some fetching and running for her. And a female slave is always more content when her offspring are nearby. I think she will do nicely for what we need her for.”
Khalifa scratched his chin. Then his lip jutted out, and he nodded. “It’s partly your fault she still lives. So payment would be—how would you say?—just recompense.”
Trent felt RyAnne stiffen and jolt upright. He tightened his grip on her, willing her to silence. His smile felt like it was carved in stone. If only there wasn’t a woman present… He forced himself to speak in a calm tone. “I suppose you could look at it that way, yes. So what will you take for the pair?”
Khalifa named a sum twice and half again the going rate of a healthy woman in the Zanzibar slave market.
Trent gritted his teeth, knowing he didn’t have any leverage when it came to bargaining. “A price I’m more than willing to pay. But if you’ll forgive me, I left my room in quite a hurry, and my purse is still there. Come with me, and I’ll pay you at once.” Keeping the man’s hand firmly within his own, he called over his shoulder, “Garrett, put down your gun and come help Miss Hunter carry my slave back to her room, would you?”
It gave him a measure of satisfaction to see Khalifa’s face wash nearly as white as his kofia when Garrett stood from where he’d been crouching behind a rock, with his rifle in his hand.
Trent tugged the man forward. “Come, my friend. Your payment awaits.”
Trent led the man to his room along the portico and retrieved his purse, and then followed him to his own room in the main part of the house, where they could sign the bill of sale.
Trent paid the man and sighed as he left the room with documents for one very expensive maimed slave and a child who would be nothing more than an extra mouth to feed. And all because of Miss RyAnne Hunter.
He stepped through the main hall to cut across toward his room, and paused at the sight of a violin case on a side table. He snapped the case open and took in the golden gleam of the instrument inside. The memory of the peacefulness that had settled over Miss Hunter’s features as she’d been playing at the ball tipped up one corner of his mouth. He tapped the rolled-up papers against his chest as he studied the instrument. Perhaps he could talk her into playing it a little before they left? A derisive huff escaped, and he snapped the case closed.
He was going soft, for sure. Thankfully, he’d come to his senses last night before he’d said anything too revealing to her. The last thing he needed right now was the complication of a courtship. Especially not when they were headed inland, where he might very likely find himself in the role of her guardian.
Not to mention protector.
And if Khalifa and his slavers got wind he was tracking them, they’d hesitate at nothing to silence him, even going to the extent of threatening anyone they thought might mean something to him. Miss Hunter’s stunt today could cost them later.
He’d have to be doubly careful with Khalifa. And yes, he’d best keep his distance from the lovely Miss Hunter. The problem was, she and her penchant for finding trouble at every cobble of the street were making that a nearly impossible feat.
But he’d promised to guide Dr. Hunter to his village, and nothing more. So once they arrived, he’d be free to explore the area and see if he could learn anything about the smugglers. And that would put him far from the woman, and any danger he might pose to her would be minimized.
He only prayed she’d be able to stay out of trouble long enough for him to track down the smugglers and get her back to Zanzibar safely.
RyAnne was resting in her room that afternoon, when a knock sounded at her door. She’d been sitting with her patient, who she’d learned was called Nyanja—lake, in the tongue of her people—all morning, and after her few hours of sleep the night before, exhaustion had caught up to her.
Rolling over, she ignored the intrusion, but when the knock came again, more insistently, she forced herself to rise.
Papa stood on the veranda with a grim-looking Captain Dawson behind him. And clutched in Papa’s hands was a set of the loathsome clothing she’d hoped he’d forgotten about.
She pinched the bridge of h
er nose. “Papa. Let’s just go back to Zanzibar. This whole thing is madness! You are so sick you can barely stand!”
Captain Dawson looked a little too hopeful as Papa brushed her out of the way and entered the room. He set the pile of clothes on the sturdy table by her bed. The captain only leaned a shoulder into the doorframe and crossed his legs, settling the toe of one boot on the floor.
When she looked back to Papa, he had sunk down onto the edge of her bed and supported himself against his knees. He hunched forward like a man well beyond his years. But when he spoke, his voice was strong. “There are regrets a man has in life, RyAnne. Regrets he’d like to make amends for before his departure from this plane. I’ve many a regret to amend. We will go on to the lake. And you will dress for safety and learn to shoot, or you will be escorted back to Zanzibar by Captain Dawson’s first mate.”
Escorted back to Zanzibar. Oh, wouldn’t that be bliss. Yet her one desire beyond having Papa in a place where he could get adequate medical attention had always been that he not die alone. Tempting as it might be to give up her fight and flee back to the familiarity of home, she would never be able to bring herself to do so. Despair weighted her shoulders.
And then the other thing he’d said registered. “Learn to shoot!” Her shock spun her back to face the captain. Her eyes narrowed. “This was your doing, wasn’t it?”
His gray-green gaze never wavered. “I suggested it, yes. But it is to your father’s credit that he saw the wisdom in the suggestion. Being able to handle a weapon is a necessity where we are going.”
She whirled back to Papa. “Papa, this is most—”
“Improper? Yes, I think we’ve discussed that already.” He stood slowly to his feet and pointed at the pile of clothes and boots. “Get dressed and meet the captain at the end of the veranda in ten minutes. He’s taking you out past the village, and both the clothing and the training are for your safety.” He touched her cheek. “You are my everything. If I ask it, it is only because I love you so much, daughter.”
RyAnne swallowed and tipped her head in a compliant nod, but when the men left the room, she ground her teeth and stomped one foot. Oh that she could pack her valise and hasten to The Wasp at once. But again, the thought of leaving Papa all alone stopped her. That and facing Mother’s recriminations when she arrived back on the island.
Lay Down Your Heart: A serialized historical Christian romance. (Sonnets of the Spice Isle Book 2) Page 6