She straightened, turning back into the room. She would not think of it. She would not think of him. She would not think.
It was a fine resolve, but one that proved impossible to keep in the hours that followed. The remainder of the night was a long section of dark time in which she tossed on the sheets, a prey to stealing images of foresworn pleasure. The responses of her body that Ramon nurtured were deeply ingrained. She longed for his touch that would bring them rising, burgeoning inside her, and woke time and again from dreams, not nightmares of terror, but dark seances of desire that left her devastated when she found herself alone. It was the trade winds of dawn, sweeping into the room, that lulled her to sleep.
She slept well into the day. Rousing, finally, she rang for a meal that might serve as both breakfast and lunch. She did not dress at all, but spent the time in her wrapper, lying on the bed and staring at the tent of mosquito netting around her, trying to think what she must do, or else standing at the French doors. From that vantage point, she watched the ever-changing face of the ocean and the gulls that wheeled, the sun on their wings, over the waves. The seabirds followed the ships that came and went; cargo vessels under clouds of sails from England, the smaller crafts that made their way between the islands, and fishing boats manned by sun-bronzed natives.
The second night was no better than the first. She was awakened at mid-morning by the cries of street vendors hawking bananas and oranges and pineapples. Those fruits were a part of her breakfast and she enjoyed them immensely, eating once more in her room. Afterward, she dressed in her habit and Ramon's shirt, but did not go out. Instead, she read the Bahamian Guardian and the Illustrated London News, which had been delivered with her morning repast. Later, she sat watching the people that came and went before the hotel; the maid, in kerchief and apron over a gown of calico held out by makeshift rattan hoops, who strode regally past with her head crowned by a basket of laundry; the vendors of straw, women practicing the craft of weaving that had been learned by their mothers and grandmothers years before, who set out their wares daily in the hotel's arcade; the invalids in opulent wheeled chairs who were pushed here and there, using the hotel for its original purpose as housing in a salubrious climate away from the damp and cold of more northern climes. From her room she also enjoyed a view of the garden, and of the gardener who raked the paths, removed spent blooms, and trimmed the shrubbery. One of his most constant tasks, it seemed, was the whitewashing of the treehouse-like balcony that was built in the largest of the giant silk cotton trees in the garden. Though she saw him applying the lime wash with slow, careful strokes a number of times, he never seemed to complete the job.
As the day advanced, men appeared of erect bearing with sun-burned faces, eyes narrowed as if from gazing out over great distances against the sun, men who might have been taken for the captains of the blockade runners in the bay. Once she saw Peter Hamilton-Lyles approaching the hotel. Fearing that he meant to call, she had hurried to the mirror over the dressing table, tucking up the loose ends of her hair, twisting at her habit skirt, brushing ineffectually at the spots that stained it.
Her preparations had been for nothing. There had been no summons to the lobby and, after a time, she had seen the Englishman leave in the company of two other men. She was relieved, yet, at the same time, disappointed. She did not want to see anyone in her present state, did not feel like making aimless conversation. Still, the incident was enough to show her that she was not satisfied with her self-imposed solitude. She had been too much alone of late, too much at the mercy of her own thoughts and memories. The sea beckoned, and she felt a great need to stroll along its verge, to touch it, to taste it, and even, perhaps, to walk into it. She wanted to explore the island, to see what was beyond the town, on the other side of the hill, or even what waited on the low island that guarded the harbor. She was tired of being the prisoner of her own morbid fears, tired, too, of her high-ceilinged room with its rosewood furniture and Haughwouts china fixtures. Tomorrow she would sally forth, with or without benefit of the proper clothing, with or without Ramon's blessing.
It was fortunate that Mrs. Carstair's assistant arrived on the morning of the third day with her arms piled high with dressmakers' boxes. After she had hung the gowns away, the young girl offered to stay and help Lorna dress. There were three muslin gowns her mistress had tucked into the boxes just in case Lorna might need them. Her aid was accepted, and Lorna donned the walking costume of tan d'or, after being assured it was the very thing that the fashionable ladies of Nassau wore while visiting in the morning.
When the girl had gone, Lorna brushed her hair back in waves from a center parting and caught it in a brown chenille snood. Satisfied that she appeared neat and modish, she picked up her drawstring bag, dropped her key into it, and swept from the room.
She heard the gathering before she came upon it. Even as she left her room, moving toward the stairs, the babble of cheerful voices, the clink of coins, and an undertone of rollicking melody could be heard. It was coming from the piazza on the same floor that jutted out over the porte cochere. Gathered there was perhaps a score of men seated in rattan chairs, each with a brass cuspidor beside it. A few wore uniforms, but most, in deference to the warmth of the day, wore open-necked shirts tucked into their trousers and sandals of woven straw upon their feet. Here and there a man plied a fan of plaited palm leaves, but the most common item used to stir the air was a straw hat with a vivid cloth band. The clanking of coins she had heard signified a table of poker set up on the veranda, near another where men played at dominoes. At the other end, a fast-paced game of pitch-penny was in progress.
The music was being supplied by a trio of Bahamians who squatted on the steps with wide grins lighting their brown faces. One of them strummed an ancient, box-like guitar; one slapped a small hide-covered drum; and the last shook a pair of gourd rattles in one hand and a tray filled with coins in the other while he sang. Their music had such an infectious rhythm that Lorna could not prevent a slight movement to it that made her skirts swing. As she hovered in the doorway, the man with the gourds caught sight of himer. His eyes brightened, and he gave a quick nod. Without losing the beat or the melody of his song, he improvised an introduction for her:
Lady with hair like the sun on the sand,
Rain-colored eyes shine like promise land;
Dress like the angel, and 'pon her hand,
Aeneid no sign of a wedding band!
A laugh bubbled up inside her, though faint color appeared across her cheekbones at the blatant flattery and the swiveling heads of the men lounging in rattan chairs behind the veranda railing. Three jumped up to beg her to join them, offering their seats; among them was Frazier, the islander who was also supercargo of the Lorelei, with his salt-and-pepper side-whiskers. His smile was warm, if a shade familiar. It crossed her mind to wonder, as she acknowledged the men Frazier took it upon himself to introduce to her, what he thought of her brief sojourn with his captain, and what, if anything, he would say about it here on the island.
She was seated next to the supercargo in a cushioned lounge chair of wicker, and a glass of lemonade was pressed upon her from a tray that stood to one side. The men, though with many covert glances, returned to the pastimes she had interrupted. It was only then that she noticed that the coins the men near the end railing were flipping in the air and passing so blithely back and forth were gold eagles worth ten dollars each, and that the stacks of coins in the center of the poker table nearby were double eagles. With the dropping value of Confederate script, it was as though they were wagering with fifty and one-hundred-dollar bills merely to while away the hours.
Her expression must have mirrored her astonishment, for the supercargo, sitting forward in his chair with his wrist braced on his knees, followed her gaze. "It's an amazing sight, isn't it? But don't worry, you'll get used to it."
"I couldn't. When I think of the things that the money lying out in plain sight here would buy in the South, I feel a little…
ill."
His face earnest, Frazier said, "I'll grant you it seems like a lot, but they earned it, you know."
"I know that the job they-you all-are doing is a dangerous one, but surely it can't pay so much."
"You would be surprised. A good captain these days earns better than three thousand a trip, and it goes up every month. Some say it will be five thousand in another year, if the war lasts that long, and that's not counting what a man can make if he owns his own ship, or what he can turn shipping cargo in his cabin."
"Captains like Ramon?" she inquired.
He agreed with a smile and a shrug before he went on. "A pilot, now, about the most important man on the ship after the captain, takes maybe three-quarters as much, and so on down the line to the crew. A good ship will make two trips a month, sometimes three. When you consider that few ship's officers in peacetime ever see as much in five years as they make here in a month, you can understand why they are just a bit free with it."
"That doesn't sound as if it leaves much for the men who invest in the cargo," she commented.
"They make plenty, believe me. It's not unusual for the profits from a single run to top seven hundred percent. There are men who are making fortunes, literally fortunes, every time a ship makes it through the blockade, and the only thing they have at risk is their money."
Her voice low, she asked, "Is the danger truly so great?"
"As the money gets better, the danger gets worse. The big, heavy-moving sailing vessels, the made-over tugboats, and square-built river steamers are being weeded out. Ships like the Lorelei have the best record, though even she will be obsolete before too long. I hear they are building a ship now on the Clyde with a screw propeller and a steel-plated hull. That's what we'll be running next."
Lorna sipped at her lemonade, staring at the pulp floating in the tart liquid. She glanced at the musicians, who were singing a slow and hauntingly beautiful song about the sea and the sun. "What is it they are playing? It's a type of music I have never heard before."
"It's island music, some of it goombay, some calypso, made mostly by the descendants of the slaves brought from Africa. Kind of grows on you, doesn't it? That was a nice verse the singer there made for you. I've been listening to them all my life, and it's uncanny how they can describe a person or a thing in a few rhyming words, as if they snatched them out of the air. They seem to see things other people miss. I don't know, maybe it's because they look closer."
"I appreciate the compliment, but I can't accept it."
"I didn't mean it that way," he answered, his gaze troubled.
"Oh, my mistake, then." Her tone was light.
A dull brick color crept under his skin, even to his bald dome. "Not that I don't think you're everything the song said, it's just that-"
"Never mind, I shouldn't tease you, but it's such a glorious day. Are you from this island then? I hadn't realized there were so many different ones until we reached them."
"Oh, no. I'm from Eleuthera, and so am a real conch, as we who were born in the islands are called," he answered, and Lorna was forced to hear in detail about that miniature paradise in the Bahama chain.
After a time, he trailed off into silence. Lorna drank the last of her lemonade, looking away, her gaze drawn by the dry scrapings of the palm trees that grew at the corner of the hotel, their deep-cut fronds waving in the tradewind blowing into the piazza.
"I…I suppose it seems strange to you and the other men on the ship, Ramon's decision to bring me to Nassau?"
"Not particularly. Anyone with half an eye could see that it would be dangerous to leave you where you were."
She made a slight movement with her shoulders. "It wasn't as if New Orleans were going to be sacked and pillaged, as in some barbaric conflict in the Middle Ages."
"But your safety couldn't be assured, and your uncle wanted you carried to a quiet place for the time being. It seems natural enough."
It was the story they had agreed upon, she and Ramon. "I see," she said slowly, "that you are in Ramon's confidence."
"You might say so. He explained it to all of us, the officers and men of the Lorelei, along with a warning that any man caught speculating about the affairs of the passengers, or of the captain, would be dismissed. That's a powerful incentive for leaving the subject alone, I can tell you. Nobody wants to lose a good berth."
She had not realized her apprehension was quite so evident. Nonetheless, she was gratified by his oblique reassurance, and by Ramon's thoughtfulness in seeing to it that there was no damage done to her reputation by his crew. She had opened her mouth to thank Frazier, when behind them came an accented drawl armored with a hint of steel.
"Exchanging secrets?"
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Chapter 10
It was Ramon, with Peter, the so-called Captain Harris, at his side, who had stepped out onto the veranda from the doorway behind them.
"No, sir. Good heavens, no!" Frazier said, starting up from his seat and turning to face the two men.
"No need to be defensive. You wouldn't be the first man to say too much to an attractive woman who knows how to listen."
"It was nothing like that."
Peter entered the conversation then, his puzzled gaze resting on Ramon's set face before he turned to rally the supercargo. "Then, you must have been bending poor Miss Forrester's ear about your dashing family." He winked at Lorna. "I don't know why it is, but he seems to think having a pirate or two swinging from the limbs of the family tree makes him irresistible."
Frazier shuffled his feet, his bald head turning pink once more. "Wreckers and sponge fishermen is more like it, though there was a great-great-grandmother who claimed to have known Teach, old Blackbeard himself, a little better than she should."
"How interesting," Lorna said, trying to do her part to relieve the tension Ramon had brought with him, to put their impromptu gathering on the friendly footing it should have had.
"New Providence was the home base for most of the pirates in the Caribbean during the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth. They were filly cleaned out about, oh, a hundred and forty years ago, more or less. Since that time, we have managed one way or another to make a living here in the islands."
"One way or another," Peter said in mock confidence and sotto-voce to Lorna, "meaning luring unsuspecting ships onto the coral reefs by lanterns tied around the necks of wandering goats."
"Well," Frazier said with an unrepentant grin, "I admitted they were wreckers, didn't I? I have to say in their defense that the men who watch for wrecks save many a life."
"Then who watch?" Lorna asked. "You mean there are still wreckers?"
"There are still shipwrecks, aren't there?" Frazier answered with great reasonableness.
"A pilot like you, old man, is what's needed," Peter said. "An islander who knows the cays and the North West Channel as well as he knows Bay Street. I don't suppose you'd like to ship with me the next time out-at a higher wage, of course?"
"Talk about piracy!" Ramon complained with an irascible glance to his friend. "Did your ancestors sail with Drake by any chance?"
As Peter merely grinned, Frazier said, "I reckon I'll stay with the Lorelei, sir. She's been a fine ship. But it's times like these that I know this war between North and South is the best chance we've had here in ages to see the color of gold."
"And others are taking advantage of it," Peter declared. "Why just yesterday, in my innocence, I gave a laundress a dozen shirts to launder. And how many did she bring back? Eight! She swore I miscounted, but more than likely she made a tidy sum on them on the black market. There are entirely too many men in Nassau, and not enough tailors to go around."
While Peter talked, Ramon had pulled up chairs for his friend and himself and signaled a waiter to bring drinks. He waved Frazier back into his chair and, as he took his seat, said to Peter, "You may be right about the tailors at any rate. Didn't I see your coat circulating again last night at the government house
reception?"
"You did indeed," the Englishman said bitterly, "on three separate backs, along with the choice rosebud, one of the few on the island, that I had plucked from a garden wall for my buttonhole." In an aside to Lorna, he explained, "My frock coat is one of the few of its kind in the islands and enjoys great popularity for formal occasions. I doubt I've spent more than ten minutes at one of the governor's receptions since I've been here; somebody is always snatching me out of a window and stripping my coat from me, so they can pay their respects. My shirts are constantly being borrowed, too, as well as purloined. I dare say that by the time I get back to my lodgings I won't have one to wear this evening, either!"
Ramon shook his head as he paid for the drinks he had ordered, then leaned back at ease in his chair. "You are too good-natured by half. Why do you lend them out?"
"It isn't I," Peter protested. "It's my man. He will believe any story a British naval officer tells him, and my friends on leave here are some of the most outrageous liars the service has ever known! If this keeps up, my laundry bill will be astronomical, or else I, begging your pardon, Miss Forrester, will be walking around in the suit I was born in."
"That should enliven Bay Street of an evening," Ramon observed.
"Hah! You think they would notice on the waterfront among the dens, dives, and bordellos? I wouldn't care to place my yellow boys on the chance!"
"You could always try your luck on East Hill Street."
"The draperies and lace curtains would twitch like mad, but I doubt there would be any, uh, signals raised."
Their banter continued in the same vein. Lorna was glad of it, for it gave her time to recover from the stiff embarrassment she felt in Ramon's presence. She was aware of his dark gaze resting upon her, even as he exchanged quips with the other men, of his weighing her words as she was drawn into the exchange of easygoing insults. She wished that she could think of something light and amusing to say to him to banish the stiffness between them, but her mind was blank.
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